5 terror suspects flown from Britain to U.S.

LONDON -- 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 United States from Britain late Friday, officials said.

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

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.

The five have sought to avoid extradition by raising concerns about human rights and the conditions they would face in a U.S. prison. The suspects face a variety of charges.

The best known of the defendants is al-Masri, 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 United States 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. -- AP