Prosecutors Seek Life Sentence For Abu Hamza As Defense Asks To Avoid High-Security Prison

A week before Abu Hamza al-Masri’s sentencing, American prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for the London imam aka Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, who they called a global terrorist leader. “The seriousness of this defendant’s offenses and the need for just punishment and deterrence cannot be overstated,” wrote prosecutors in the New York office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Friday, according to Reuters.

Abu Hamza, 56, was found guilty on 11 counts associated with his aiding various terrorist activities around the world.

According to court documents, he was involved with a Yemeni militant group’s kidnapping of 16 Western tourists in 1998, an incident that ended with three British and two Australian citizens killed, as reported by the Telegraph in the U.K. He was also found guilty of helping establish a militant training facility in Oregon, and sending associates to Afghanistan to aid al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In 2012, he and four other radical Islamist leaders were extradited from the U.K. to the U.S. after seven years in prison, as the Guardian reported at the time.

The cleric, who was born in Egypt but was later based at London’s Finsbury Park mosque, is missing one eye and both hands. The Associated Press reported his attorneys have asked that, because of his disabilities, he serve his time in a medical facility, as opposed to a high-security federal prison. His sentencing will take place in federal court in New York Jan. 9.