Abu Qatada – your plane awaits
I hear that the Home Office is planning to fly Abu Qatada out of Northolt Airport in west London at 2am on Sunday morning to Jordan on a military plane.
The necessary exchange of letters with the Jordanians has happened. Abu Qatada’s lawyers will soon be served with papers reviving the original deportation order. They will have 72 hours to appeal or challenge the order with a judicial review.
But the Home Office is working on the assumption that Abu Qatada meant what his lawyer said on his behalf in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in May, that his client was ready to return to Jordan – if Jordan signed a treaty promising not to use evidence in court against him obtained through torture.
There has been much scepticism around whether this eight-year deportation saga is truly coming to an end.
Why would Abu Qatada suddenly change his mind after so long resisting deportation? Is it all a ruse to maximise embarrassment for the British government as the plane revs up on the runway only for the Islamist cleric to stay on British soil?
The Home Office thinks not.
Whatever the reason, it believes he has decided to go back to Jordan and the publication today in the Jordanian government’s official gazette of the treaty is a major milestone on that journey.
It could be that Abu Qatada doesn’t think things will be that tough for him in Jordan. It could be his family wants to head back there too. It could be that he sees a re-trial as another stage on which to convey his message.
British government sources claim it could be that they have ground him down and closed off his options. It could still be that he surprises the authorities and changes tack, lodging a challenge.
After the row last April over whether the Home Secretary had missed the deadline to re-arrest Abu Qatada her department will be desperate to avoid any sort of slip this week.
But that’s not the expectation. David Cameron said in May that he would be “one of the the happiest people in Britain” if Abu Qatada left the country. He may yet be cracking open a bottle this weekend and he might even toast his ambitious Home Secretary Theresa May with the contents.
Her admirers will point out that she achieved what her predecessors didn’t and negotiated the deal with Jordan that made this possible.
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