On 5 October 2012, after an eight-year legal battle, he was extradited from the UK to the United States to face terrorism charges[7][8] and on 14 April 2014 his trial began in New York.
[14] Hamza gained employment as a bouncer in the strip bars of Soho under his original name from 1980 until 1983, when club owner Jean Agius was arrested and charged for conspiring to be a pimp.
"[21] This version of events is corroborated by Aimen Dean, a senior figure in al-Qaeda's chemical weapons programme turned double agent for MI6.
[23] On 16 May 1980, Hamza married British citizen Valerie Fleming, a Roman Catholic convert to Islam,[24] and soon after they had a son, Mohammed Mustafa Kamel born in October 1981.
[30] Hamza was the imam of Finsbury Park Mosque from 1997, and a leader of the Supporters of Sharia, a group that believed in a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
He wrote a paper entitled El Ansar (The Victor) in which he expressed support for the actions of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria, but he later rejected them when they started killing civilians.
[37] He allegedly associated with Abdullah el-Faisal, a Jamaican Muslim convert cleric who preached in the UK until he was imprisoned for urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians and Americans, subsequently being deported to Jamaica in 2007.
[38] Hamza was arrested in December 1980, during a raid on a Soho strip club, for overstaying his tourist visa, which allowed him to stay in the UK for one month.
[39] Almost two months later, on 19 October 2004, Hamza was charged with fifteen offences under the provisions of various British statutes, including encouraging the killing of non-Muslims, and intent to stir up racial hatred.
In September 2012, Frank Gardner claimed that Queen Elizabeth II had been upset some years earlier that Abu Hamza al-Masri could not be arrested.
[44] On 18 January 2007, Lord Justice Hughes made an order for the recovery of the full costs of the court-appointed defence of the race-hate charges, estimated in excess of £1 million.
The United States wanted Hamza to stand trial for eleven counts relating to the taking of sixteen hostages in Yemen in 1998, advocating jihad in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting James Ujaama in an alleged attempt to establish a "terrorist training camp" in late 1999 and early 2000 near Bly, Oregon, and of providing aid to al-Qaeda.
[46][47] Ujaama is a US citizen who had met Abu Hamza in England in 1999 and was indicted in the US for providing aid to al-Qaeda, attempting to establish a terrorist training camp, and for running a website advocating global jihad.
On 8 July 2010, the ECHR temporarily blocked Hamza's extradition to the United States to face terrorism charges until the court was satisfied that he would not be treated inhumanely.
Abu Hamza arrived in the US on the morning of 6 October 2012 to face eleven charges relating to hostage taking, conspiracy to establish a militant training camp and calling for holy war in Afghanistan.
[9] His lawyer, Joshua Dratel, claimed Abu Hamza cooperated with MI5 and the police to help interact with the British Muslim community.
[63] In late August 2020, The Times reported that Abu Hamza had filed a lawsuit against the US Attorney General William Barr over what he described as "inhumane and degrading" conditions at ADX Florence.