Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, wanted in the U.S. for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda, was jailed for seven years in the U.K. after being convicted of encouraging the murder of Jews and other non-Muslims.

Al-Masri, 47, a former preacher at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, was convicted of charges including inciting murder and racial hatred and possessing a document likely to be useful to terrorists. Justice Anthony Hughes sentenced al-Masri to seven years on the incitement to murder charges and from 21 months to 3 1/2 years on the others, to be served at the same time.

``You helped to create an atmosphere in which to kill has come to be regarded by some not only as a legitimate course, but as a moral and religious duty in pursuit of justice,'' Justice Hughes told al-Masri today at London's Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey.

Prosecutors claimed al-Masri was a ``recruiting officer for terrorism and murder'' and used his sermons to ignite a ``tinderbox'' of angry young Muslims. U.S. prosecutors are seeking his extradition on 11 charges, including trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon and taking part in a 1998 hostage-taking plot in Yemen in which four people were killed.

The Egyptian-born cleric, who lost both hands and one eye in Afghanistan, was acquitted of four of 15 counts in the U.K. -- one of inciting racial hatred and three of the soliciting murder charges -- by a jury of seven men and five women. The jury returned the unanimous verdicts after 2 1/2 days of deliberation.

Video Recordings

Al-Masri testified at trial that he helped fundamentalist Muslim groups in countries including Afghanistan, but denied soliciting murder.

The case against him was based on nine video recordings of his sermons seized by police in 2004, in which he is shown saying that Jews should be ``removed from the Earth'' and urging Muslims to ``bleed'' their enemies.

``No one can say now what damage your words did,'' Justice Hughes said.

Britain's Metropolitan Police Service today for the first time disclosed that weapons, military gear and hundreds of forged identity documents were found when it raided the Finsbury Park mosque in 2003.

Afghani Jihad

Prosecutors said al-Masri also possessed 10 volumes of a manual, known as the Encyclopaedia of the Afghani Jihad, that contained detailed instructions on how to make explosives and identified London's Big Ben and New York's Statue of Liberty as potential terror targets.

Al-Masri claimed at trial that he had never read the volumes and that his sermons were based on the religious tenets and ideas of the Koran.

He was tried on nine counts of soliciting murder and six counts relating to his alleged incitement of racial hatred and his possession of the encyclopedia as a document containing terrorist information. His trial opened on Jan. 11.

The 15 British charges, brought in October 2004, temporarily halted U.S. efforts to extradite him. U.K. lawyers today told the court that it is unlikely al-Masri can be extradited until he has served his full sentence in Britain and exhausted all possible appeals. Edward Fitzgerald QC, Al-Masri's lawyer, told the court the cleric ``strenuously contests'' the U.S. allegations and will fight any renewed extradition effort on the grounds that he wouldn't get a fair trail in the U.S.

A preliminary extradition hearing has been set for March 1.

`Freelance Consultant'

New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a May 2004 press conference in New York described al-Masri, also known as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, as a ``freelance consultant'' who helped recruit and equip terrorists around the world.

He's accused in an 11-count federal indictment of providing a satellite phone to the leader of a faction of the Islamic Army of Aden, a group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of the USS Cole, in which 17 U.S. sailors died.

Al-Masri received three calls made from that satellite phone to his home on Dec. 27, 1998, one day before terrorists stormed a caravan of vehicles carrying 16 tourists, including two Americans, and took them hostage, according to the indictment. Four hostages were killed and several wounded when they were subsequently used as human shields during a rescue effort by the Yemeni military, the indictment says.

He's also charged with trying to set up a training camp in Bly, Oregon for radical Muslims advocating ``jihad,'' or holy war, and giving material support to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the former rulers of Afghanistan who provided sanctuary for bin Laden.

A New York grand jury first returned an indictment against the cleric in April 2004. Those charges have since been superseded by another indictment, filed in the same court on Sept. 12, 2005.

To contact the reporter on this story: Megan Murphy in London at mmurphy41@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 7, 2006 11:31 EST