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IAN WALDIE/REUTERS
Radical Muslim cleric Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri, shown here in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2002, wants be housed at a special prison while he awaits trial on terrorism charges in New York federal court.
This hardline jihadist is pretty soft.
Hook-handed Islamic preacher Abu Hamza Al Masri, an accused Al Qaeda terrorist who once incredibly requested a bidet in his Manhattan lockup, whined to a New York federal judge Monday that the jail wasn’t up to snuff.
The cleric, who claims that he lost both of his hands fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and who has only one eye, is demanding that he be moved to a special prison in Devens, Mass., that houses inmates with long-term medical problems.
Ryan McVay/Getty/Getty Images
Can anyone really blame the hook-handed Hamza for requesting a bidet in his Manhattan jail?
Abu Hamza, 55, born Mostafa Kamel Mostafa in Egypt, had his lawyers tell a federal judge that the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan just didn’t cut it.
RELATED: HOOK-HANDED CLERIC COMPLAINS JAIL NOT GIVING HIM PROSTHETICS
“The MCC can’t provide him with the facilities he needs,” lawyer Joshua Dratel told reporters after a pretrial conference.
John Stillwell/Associated Press
Accused Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Hamza Al Masri is dubbed ‘Doctor Hook’ in Britain.
The defendant showed up to court not wearing his signature hooked pinchers.
“His arms are infected, and this is an issue that needs to be resolved at a medical center,” said Lindsay Lewis, a lawyer representing Abu Hamza.
The accused terror thug, whose charges include involvement in a 1998 attack on tourists in Yemen that resulted in four deaths, has a long history of whining about his accommodations.
MATT DUNHAM/Reuters
It took eight years before the U.S. was able too extradite Abu Hamza Al Masri, second left, from the U.K.
RELATED: TERROR TRIAL SET FOR AUGUST
The U.S. spent eight years trying to extradite Abu Hamza from the U.K. while the radical hate-monger attempted to block the move on health grounds, arguing that U.S. prison conditions would be inhumane.
The feds finally got their hands on him last year.
Louis Lanzano/AP/AP
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York is no hotel, a federal judge reminded Abu Hamza Al Masri.
Abu Hamza was slapped in 2004 with an 11-count indictment that accuses him of supporting the Taliban with money and soldiers, aiding in the 1998 attack that left four kidnapped hostages dead and plotting to set up an Al Qaeda training camp in Oregon.
The man nicknamed “Doctor Hook” by the British press has kept up his complaints here, at one point even requesting a handicapped-accessible toilet due to problems with his prosthetic limbs.
RELATED: AL-MASRI EXTRADITION IS A HUGE WIN
His bellyaching was so bad last March that U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest admonished Abu Hamza by reminding him that jail “is not a hotel.”
Forrest made no ruling on his latest demand Monday because his lawyers plan to ask the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the transfer.
“The United Kingdom was promised that Mr. Mostafa would be provided a certain level of accommodation as a condition of his extradition to the United States,” Lewis said in a statement Monday.
Abu Hamza is scheduled to go on trial April 14. He faces life in prison if convicted.
