Profile: Abu Qatada

Abu Qatada, pictured in 2000

Radical cleric Abu Qatada has been variously described as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" and a "truly dangerous individual".

The Palestinian-Jordanian is now facing deportation after the Law Lords delivered an important judgement on terrorism suspects and allegations of torture abroad.

Abu Qatada became one of the UK's most wanted men in December 2001 when he went on the run on the eve of government moves to introduce new anti-terror laws allowing suspects to be detained without charge or trial.

The 48-year-old father-of-five, also known as Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, arrived in the UK in September 1993 on a forged United Arab Emirates passport.

He was allowed to stay in June 1994 after claiming asylum for himself and his family.

He seemed very private, but always said hello in the street Former neighbour

In the mid-1990s Abu Qatada was said to have held meetings with an MI5 officer at which he suggested his willingness to co-operate to help prevent Islamist terrorism in the UK.

But tapes of his sermons were unearthed in a Hamburg flat used by some of those responsible for the 11 September attacks on the US.

And Mr Justice Collins later said it appeared his attitude to "possible attacks in or against the interests of the UK" had changed after 11 September.

Richard Reid, the would-be mid-Atlantic Shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, both jailed for involvement in terrorism, are said to have sought religious advice from him.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett once described him as the most significant extremist preacher in the UK.

But Abu Qatada has always publicly distanced himself from claims of links to al-Qaeda and insists he has never met its leader, Osama Bin Laden.

In February 2001, Abu Qatada was questioned by anti-terrorism police over alleged connections to a German cell.

Abu Qatada made a video appeal in 2005 for the release of a hostage

Officers found the father-of-five in possession of £170,000 in cash, including £805 in an envelope labelled "For the Mujahedin in Chechnya", but no charges were brought.

Abu Qatada disappeared as the government introduced measures to detain foreign terrorism suspects - but the authorities tracked him down to a south London council house in October 2002.

He was eventually freed on bail in March 2005 after a court challenge to the terror legislation under the Human Rights Act, but was made the subject of a control order to limit his movement and contact with others.

In August he was taken back into custody after the Home Office decided to try to send him to Jordan, where he has been found guilty of terrorism offences in his absence. It's that legal battle that has taken four years to reach February's Law Lords ruling.

In December 2005, Abu Qatada made a video appeal to the kidnappers of British peace activist Norman Kember in Iraq.

The recording, made when Abu Qatada was in Full Sutton jail, near York, was broadcast in the Middle East.

Mr Kember later went on to donate to Abu Qatada's bail fund, saying he had been in prison without trial for too long.

Then, to the surprise of the Home Office, he won his case at the Court of Appeal, after judges concluded that he should not be returned to Jordan because his conviction there was partly based on evidence extracted by from torture. That, they decided, meant he had not received a fair trial.

The authorities had no choice but to release him on bail in June 2008 and he was allowed to return to his family at a London address and subjected to a 22-hour curfew.

In December he was returned to jail after security officials warned he could be planning to flee the country. They said there was intelligence of an armed group calling for a renowned preacher to come to the battlefield. Supporters of the cleric said that they had been trying to find a third country willing to accept him so that he could leave the UK.