Abu Qatada al-Filistini

Abu Qatada al-Filistini أبو قتادة الفلسطيني
Abu Qatada during his deportation to Jordan on 7 July 2013
Born	Omar Mahmoud Othman (1960-12-30) 30 December 1960 (age 63)[1] Bethlehem, Jordan-annexed West Bank
Other names	Abu Omar
Citizenship	Jordanian
Known for	Alleged links with terrorism, imprisonment without trial

Omar Mahmoud Othman (Arabic: عمر بن محمود بن عثمان, romanized: 'Umar ibn Maḥmūd ibn 'Uṯmān; born 30 December 1960),^[a] better known as Abu Qatada al-Filistini (/ˈɑːbuː kəˈtɑːdə/ ^ⓘ AH-boo kə-TAH-də; Arabic: أبو قتادة الفلسطيني, romanized: 'Abū Qatāda al-Filisṭīnī), is a Salafi^[2][3] cleric and Jordanian national. Abu Qatada was accused of having links to terrorist organisations and frequently imprisoned in the United Kingdom without formal charges or prosecution before being deported to Jordan, where he was acquitted of multiple terrorism charges.^[4][5][6]

Abu Qatada claimed asylum in the United Kingdom in 1993 on a forged passport. In 1999, he was convicted in absentia in Jordan of planning thwarted terror plots during Jordan's millennium eve and was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment with hard labour.^[4] Abu Qatada was repeatedly imprisoned and released in the United Kingdom after he was first detained under anti-terrorism laws in 2002 but was not prosecuted for any crime.^[7][8][9] The Algerian government described Abu Qatada as being involved with Islamists in London and possibly elsewhere.^[10][11] After initially barring the United Kingdom from deporting Abu Qatada to Jordan, in May 2012 the European Court of Human Rights denied him leave to appeal against deportation.^[12][13]

On 12 November 2012, the UK Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) upheld Abu Qatada's appeal against deportation and released him on restrictive bail conditions. The Home Secretary Theresa May said the government would appeal against the decision.^[14] He was deported to Jordan on 7 July 2013, after the UK and Jordanian governments agreed and ratified a treaty satisfying the need for clarification that evidence potentially gained through torture would not be used against him in his forthcoming trial.^[15]

On 26 June 2014, Abu Qatada was retried as is required by the Jordanian legal system if the defendant is returned to the country.^[4] He was found not guilty by a Jordanian court of terrorism charges relating to one alleged 1999 plot. He remained in prison pending a verdict that was due September 2014 on a second alleged plot.^[5][6] On 24 September 2014, a panel of civilian judges sitting at Amman's State Security Court cleared him of being involved in a thwarted plot aimed at Western and Israeli targets in Jordan during the millennium celebrations in 2000 due to "insufficient evidence".^[4] Evidence used to convict him in the previous trial were overturned, per the treaty signed between the United Kingdom and Jordan, as they may have been potentially acquired through torture.^[4]

Despite his history with militancy, scholar of Islam Daniel Lav argues that it should not hide his scholarly credentials in traditional Islamic studies, as "he certainly has connections to al-Qaʻida, but he is also the author of a polemic against the theological views of a nineteenth-century rector of al-Azhar, coauthor of a reference work on the eleventh-century scholar Ibn Hazm's evaluations of transmitters of hadith, and editor of an influential twentieth-century Wahhabi work of theology."^[16] In the same tone, Victoria Brittain, a former associate foreign editor of The Guardian, and who knows him personally, also says that "the man behind the myth is a scholar with wide intellectual and cultural interests. He wrote books while he was in prison. His home is filled with books."^[17]

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