Hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza has gone on hunger strike after whinging about his US prison cell.
The convicted terrorist demanded he be moved to a bigger pad, refusing to eat for "several weeks", saying his treatment was the "equivalent to torture". He was only transferred when warders at Colorado's ADX Florence - America's only supermax prison nicknamed the 'Alcatraz of the Rockies' - bowed to Hamza's demands. The details were contained in hundreds of pages of new evidence submitted to the Southern District Court in New York, where the evil terrorist is demanding he be immediately set free and returned to the UK on the grounds of ill health.
The documents show the bellyaching ex-bouncer - known as Mostafa Mostafa in the US - has repeatedly gone on hunger strike - earlier this year and for seven weeks starting in October 2019. His lawyers told the judge overseeing his case: "Notwithstanding an order from the warden on January 21, 2021, after a new warden arrived in ADX, in early 2024, Mr Mostafa was forcibly returned to cell 300. "After unsuccessfully reminding the staff of the prior warden's order that he was to remain in cell 511, Mr Mostafa began a hunger strike.
"After several weeks, the new warden spoke with him, and it was agreed that if he ended the hunger strike, he would be returned to cell 511." His lawyers entered photographs of the two pads into evidence to "make obvious the insufficiency of the accommodations created in both cells." Diabetic and toothless Hamza's protest is not the first time he has refused all food.
In October 2019, the now 66-year-old - known as prisoner #67495-054 - complained again about his conditions, which he claimed led to him being force fed and assaulted by prison staff. "They said they are going to strap me down 'very tight to the force-feeding chair and don't care if you defecate,'" he wrote. Hamza's treatment now forms part of his demands as to why he should be released back to London with immediate effect despite being sentenced to life in prison for terrorism offences.
The former Stringfellows bouncer claims he has been denied by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) proper care for his overgrown toenails, has hardly any teeth left and has been rejected prosthetics for his arm stumps all while he remained under 'special administrative measures' in solitary confinement for 12 years.
In arguing for his immediate release, his lawyers, who accuse the American government of lying to the British courts to have Hamza extradited from the UK, write: "Taken as a whole, the conditions forced upon Mr Mostafa are equivalent to torture and have no place in our system of justice. Enough is enough. Since ADX Florence has proven that it cannot accommodate Mr Mostafa's medical needs, he should have long ago been redesignated to a Federal Medical Centre."
"In light of the BOP's failure or unwillingness to do so, coupled with the extraordinary and compelling harm that he has befallen as we result of the BOP's indifference and/or incompetence, Defendant Mostafa Kamel Mostafa should either be immediately released or should have his term of imprisonment reduced to reflect the cruel and unusual punishment that he has so uniquely endured."
Hamza was convicted in 2015 in New York over his role in the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 foreign tourists, of whom four were killed, and of conspiring to set up a militant training camp in Bly, Oregon, in late 1999. He was also found guilty of providing material support to bin Laden's terror network, wanting to set up a computer lab for the Taliban and sending recruits for terror training in Afghanistan. At his sentencing, he was told he would die behind bars by the judge.