Fight to kick out Abu Qatada has cost £1.7m, May says

The legal costs to the public purse of attempting to remove radical cleric Abu Qatada since 2005 total £1,716,306, the Home Secretary has said in a letter to MPs.
Abu Qatada.Abu Qatada.
Abu Qatada.

In a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Theresa May said the figure includes the terror suspect’s legal aid costs of £647,658, as well as more than £1m in Home Office costs for pursuing the case through the courts.

The Government has been trying to deport Qatada to Jordan, where he was convicted of terror charges in his absence in 1999, for around eight years.

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Committee chairman Keith Vaz MP said: “I am shocked that Abu Qatada’s legal costs alone could have employed 90 new constables for a year.”

Mrs May told the committee there were a number of costs relating to Qatada’s case, which fell across a number of Government departments and agencies and could not be provided.

The legal aid cost is a net figure, she added, which takes into account the £217,286.57 the Legal Aid Agency has secured as a contribution to the controversial cleric’s legal aid from his frozen assets.

The cost to the Home Office of pursuing the case in courts in England and Wales was £938,630, while the costs relating to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg were £130,018.

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The Jordanian parliament recently approved a treaty with the UK designed to trigger Qatada’s removal.

The agreement, unveiled by the Home Secretary in April, aims to allay fears that evidence extracted through torture will be used against the terror suspect at a retrial.

Last month, Qatada unexpectedly volunteered to leave the country as soon as the treaty between the UK and Jordan is ratified by both countries.

The agreement has been approved by both houses of the Jordanian parliament but must still be signed off by the country’s King Abdullah.

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The UK Government expects the treaty to be ratified in Britain by June 21.

But Mrs May previously warned that, even when the treaty is fully ratified, it will not necessarily mean that Qatada will be on a plane to Jordan within days.

The case remains open to appeal.