LONDON — Abu Qatada has been convicted in Jordan, indicted in Spain, arrested in Britain and accused of being Al Qaeda's top ideologue in Europe.
Western investigators call him the godfather of "Londonistan," a nickname for the multiethnic extremist community that flourished here in the late 1990s. The cleric's sermons allegedly influenced Abu Musab Zarqawi, who led Al Qaeda in Iraq until his death in 2006; the train bombers who hit Madrid in 2004; and the hijackers who struck the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
But soon the portly, 48-year-old Jordanian with the long beard will be released on bail from a top-security prison near London. An immigration panel ordered the release after an appellate court blocked an effort to deport him to Jordan.
Seven years after he came to personify Londonistan, anti-terrorism officials are still trying to figure out what to do with him. Investigators have struggled to turn the intelligence about his activities into evidence for prosecution, a senior British anti-terrorism official said in an interview.
"He is emblematic of the problem of the ideologue," said the British official, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the case.
Many European countries lack strong laws against incitement and recruitment, said veteran anti-terrorism prosecutor Stefano Dambruoso. He has overseen investigations of suspected militants in Italy who he says revered Abu Qatada.
"Even with the most hard-core extremist speech, you run into the problem of freedom of expression, freedom of religion," Dambruoso said. "It is very difficult to connect words to acts committed by others."
Abu Qatada's lawyers accuse the government of trampling his rights in a campaign that tries to criminalize religious activity and creates indefinite detention for foreign suspects. His lawyer calls the media's description of him as Al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe "nonsense" and has challenged law enforcement to put him on trial.
Instead, authorities chose a strategy of sending him back to Jordan to be judged. British diplomats crafted a deal in which the Jordanians agreed to let independent human rights watchdogs monitor his treatment during a retrial on charges related to a terrorist attack and a foiled bomb plot in Jordan for which he had been convicted in absentia.
Nonetheless, the appellate panel ruled last month that British officials could not guarantee Abu Qatada's safety or prevent the use of Jordanian evidence already obtained through torture.
