Terror suspect al-Masri extradited from U.K. to U.S.

Radical preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other terror suspects who fought for years to avoid facing charges in the United States lost their grounds for appeal and were flown to the U.S. from Britain late Friday, officials said.

The U.S. Embassy said it was pleased with the ruling earlier Friday by Britain's High Court, and Scotland Yard said the five departed from an air force base in eastern England just before midnight on two jets bound for the U.S.

Judges John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley rejected last-ditch applications by al-Masri, Khaled al-Fawwaz, Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdul Bary and Syed Talha Ahsan, who had been battling extradition for between eight and 14 years.

Thomas said there were no grounds for any further delay, noting that it was "in the interest of justice that those accused of very serious crimes, as each of these claimants is in these proceedings, are tried as quickly as possible as is consistent with the interests of justice."

"It follows that their extradition to the United States of America may proceed immediately," the judge said.

The five have sought to avoid extradition by raising concerns about human rights and the conditions they would face in a U.S. prison. BothBritish and European courtshave ruled that they can be sent to the U.S. to face charges, but they sought last-minute injunctions from the High Court.

Mosque allegedly used to recruit for holy war

The suspects face a variety of charges stretching back several years.

The best known of the defendants is al-Masri, an Egyptian-born former nightclub bouncer who turned London's Finsbury Park Mosque into a training ground for radical Islamists during the 1990s. The mosque was once attended by Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

Al-Masri is wanted in the U.S. on charges that include conspiring with Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and helping abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

Ahmad and Ahsan faces charges in Connecticut relating to websites that allegedly sought to raise cash, recruit fighters and seek equipment for terrorists in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

Bary and al-Fawwaz were indicted with others, including Osama bin Laden, for their alleged roles in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa in 1998. Al-Fawwaz faces more than 269 counts of murder.

Al-Masri has been in a British jail since 2004 on separate charges of inciting racial hatred and encouraging followers to kill non-Muslims.

Lawyers for the 54-year-old preacher, who has one eye and hooks in place of hands he claims to have lost fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, argued in court that his deteriorating physical and mental health meant it would be "oppressive" to send him to a U.S. prison. They said he suffers from depression, chronic sleep deprivation, diabetes and other ailments.

The judges said his conditions could be treated in the U.S., and concluded that "there is nothing to suggest that extradition in this case would be unjust or oppressive."