Abu Hamza's signature hooks have been replaced with a variety of prosthetics that often break. Photo: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
Abu Hamza's wife has asked for her husband to be released from a maximum security prison in Colorado as new court documents show his health is rapidly deteriorating.
Najat Chaffe, the convicted terrorist's second wife, filed a letter in New York, the judge calls for him to be given the opportunity to “return home to his family, where he truly belongs.”
Hamza, 65, was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for a string of terrorism offenses following his extradition. from the UK, where he preached hate at a mosque in north London.
His legal team has launched a series of appeals against his incarceration at ADX Florence, the US maximum security prison where he has been held in solitary confinement for eight years.< /p>
In her letter published by The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Chaffe portrayed her husband as a family man and complained that she had “spent countless years alone, taking on the enormous responsibility of raising our children.”
“The desire to give back his presence in our lives has only intensified over time,” she wrote last month, adding, “Witnessing him reunite with our precious grandchildren and spend time together as a family would be a dream come true.”
Abu Hamza was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 on terrorism and kidnapping charges. Photo: STEPHEN LOCK
Another letter from his son Imran Mustafa Kamel asks the court to “recognize the lasting scars that the absence of a parent can leave on a family.”
“I, a 30-year-old man, still I cry in my sleep at times, struggling with the deep loss and the emotional turmoil it brings,” he wrote.
Mr Hamza was extradited to the US in 2012, facing 11 terrorism charges, including the kidnapping of 16 tourists in Yemen, aiding terrorists and attempting to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon.
Lord Cameron, then Prime Minister minister, welcomed the guilty verdict at the time, arguing that “it’s good that he was brought to justice and justice was done.”
After a series of unsuccessful legal appeals, Hamza's lawyers have filed a final petition for habeas corpus to win his release, arguing he is being held in “extraordinary and unimaginable” conditions as his health deteriorates.
In the 500-page court document , sent to an appeals judge on Friday, details the impact of his prison sentence on his extensive health problems, including the amputation of both arms following a chemical accident in Pakistan in 1993. It states that his sentence was nothing short of pure hell.”
The petition states that Mr. Hamza's signature hooks have been replaced with a variety of prosthetic devices that frequently break, leaving him unable to use toilet paper or apply cream to areas of dry skin.
Violates extradition conditions
The petition says it is also said that he is “able to open food packages only by tearing them with his teeth”, resulting in “severe damage” to nerves and the loss of several teeth.
Although he was “given safety scissors to open the packages”, They are “Difficult, almost impossible, to use for him,” the message says.
The terrorist also suffers from overgrown toenails, which requires “professional help” which his lawyers say he has been denied, and he has contracted Covid-19 several times.
Mr Hamza is allowed three 15- minute phone calls. each month, which he uses to talk to his wife, children, grandson and Stephen Coles, the vicar of North London, with whom he became friends in London. He is allowed to send letters, but is limited to three pages per person per week.
Lawyers argue his treatment at ADX Florence violates the terms of his extradition from Britain, where a Westminster judge has said he is likely to will be kept in solitary confinement for only a “relatively short period of time” and that a longer stay in a high-security prison could breach the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Hamza's lawyers said he had asked to be allowed to return to England to live with his wife and children, noting that “due to the nature of his conviction, he will be monitored by British security services.”
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