Al-Qaeda hate preacher Abu Qatada wins £150 a week benefits

By Justin Penrose Crime Correspondent, sundaymirror.co.uk 22/06/2008

Hate preacher Abu Qatada has won £150 a week in benefits because a bad back makes him unfit for work.

The al-Qaeda lieutenant will rake in nearly £8,000 a year of taxpayers' money because of a back condition which entitles him to incapacity benefit.

Qatada, 47, is BANNED from leaving his home for 22 hours a day...meaning he can't go out to work anyway.

The Sunday Mirror can also reveal that while he has been behind bars on terror convictions his wife has been claiming £45,000 a year in child benefit, income support, housing benefit and council tax credit.

Ibtisam Saleh has been getting £865 a week - a benefits bill of £180,000 over the past four years.

Qatada's new claim for £150-aweek incapacity benefit puts the family's annual handouts in the region of £50k.

Osama bin Laden's right-hand man and "ambassador" in Europe is now living in luxury in an £800,000 four-bedroom Edwardian house after the Appeal Court freed him this week.

He had been held under antiterror laws but is now under "house arrest" after the court backed a claim by the Jordanianborn extremist that deporting him to his homeland, where he was convicted in his absence of terror offences, would breach his human rights.

Yesterday Steve Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North, which borders the West London property, was furious at the benefits pay-out. He said: "This is adding insult to injury. He abuses us and bleeds us dry at the same time.

"The sooner he gets back to Jordan the better. I for one would put him in the boot of my car and drive him there myself."

Taxpayers are also footing a £1million-a-year bill to keep Qatada confined in the sprawling house where he is allowed out for two hours a day wearing an electronic tag.

Wife Ibtisam, 45, has been getting £499.62 a week housing benefit, £81.55 a week child benefit, for four children aged 17, 14, nine and six, and around £240 a week income support. The couple's oldest child, Sarra, is 19 and does not qualify for child benefit. Their home in a leafy suburb is in the second highest council-tax price-band G - costing £2,283 a year, but Ibtisam is fully exempt from paying it.

Qatada has been warned he will go back to jail if he contacts al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden or fellow hate preacher Abu Hamza, 50 - in jail for inciting murder.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is to appeal to the House of Lords against the decision not to deport Qatada. The Court of Appeal said he could stay because evidence in any prosecution in Jordan may have been obtained by torture - a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Qatada, linked to the September 11 attacks and other al Qaeda plots, was branded "truly dangerous" by a judge. The Home Office has accused him of direct involvement in some terror operations and inspiring others in Paris and Strasbourg.

Known for his outspoken sermons, he is said to have "radicalised and recruited young Muslims for training and participation in terrorist operations".

His youth club prayer meetings are said to have been attended by Zacharias Moussaoui, the alleged intended 20th hijacker in the 911 Twin Towers plot.

He is also said to have influenced airline shoe bomber Richard Reid and Djamel Beghal, who is accused of plotting an attack on the US embassy in Paris.

He also allegedly advised Rachid Ramda, who was extradited to France after the 1995 Paris Metro bombing.

Videos of Qatada's sermons were found in the Hamburg flat of Mohammed Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers