Muslim cleric Abu Qatada walked free from a Jordanian jail on Wednesday after being cleared of charges of conspiring in a plot to attack tourists - his second acquittal this year following a long extradition process from Britain. The state security court in the capital Amman ruled that the charges against the radical preacher - providing spiritual and material support for an attack planned during New Year celebrations in Jordan in 2000 - lacked sufficient evidence.
"Abu Qatada has been released from prison and is now on his way home," a judicial source told Reuters. Smiling and dressed in brown prison fatigues, the cleric had earlier waved to his family in the court room after the verdict was announced, a witness said. His wife and relatives hugged each other and shouted "thanks and praise to God!" after the ruling, which a written verdict from Judge Ahmad Qatarneh called unanimous, witnesses said.
Abu Qatada was extradited from Britain last year after a lengthy legal process and acquitted in June in a separate case of charges of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism. That acquittal was also based on lack of evidence. In London, a Home Office spokeswoman said it was a relief the cleric was no longer in Britain posing a security threat, and said he would never return. "The UK courts agreed that Abu Qatada posed a threat to national security... (He)... remains subject to a deportation order and a United Nations travel ban. He is not coming back to the UK," she said. Wednesday's session was a retrial in which the prosecution had argued the cleric was a mentor to militant cells in Jordan while he was in Britain, providing them with spiritual and material support during the late 1990s.