Profile: Abu Qatada

To Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge as well known for his attempts to extradite General Pinochet as his prosecution of terrorism suspects, he was "Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe".

Today, Abu Qatada, 44, is facing deportation from Britain. Since October 2002 he has been confined without trial, firstly in Belmarsh prison and, for the last few months, in his own home, under Charles Clarke's control orders.

He was held under the emergency anti-terrorism legislation enacted after the September 2001 attacks in the United States. Qatada was considered too dangerous to live at liberty, too difficult to prosecute and too much at risk of torture or execution to be extradited to Jordan, which had convicted him in absentia on terrorism charges.

Yesterday Britain finalised an agreement with Jordan that could see Qatada deported. The agreement amounts to a guarantee Qatada would be safe from torture and the death penalty, but human rights groups are sceptical Jordan will stick to its side of the deal. Amnesty said the agreement was "not worth the paper it is printed on".

Qatada entered Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport and was granted asylum for himself and his family in 1994. From the introduction of the anti-terrorism legislation in November 2001 to his arrest the following October he was on the run in Britain. Over 6ft tall and weighing more than 20 stone, he is a conspicuous figure, though, and there was persistent speculation he was supplying information to MI5 in return for his freedom. Senior police sources denied the allegations.

The cleric himself denied he was Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, or spiritual ambassador to the continent. He denied he had ever met the al-Qaida leader. Speaking to CNN in November 2001, he said he would have been "proud" to but such a meeting never happened.

Investigators have, however, linked Qatada to terrorist cells in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. Videos made by the cleric were found in the Hamburg flat used by Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. He also has links to would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty in a US court in April to training for a "broader conspiracy" than 9/11 to use aircraft as weapons.

Judge Garzon claimed that money raised in Spain was sent to Qatada so he could send it on to Mohamed al-Maqdasi, a Jordanian imprisoned for planning bomb attacks in his own country.

Justice Collins, chairman of the special immigration appeal tribunal that heard an appeal against Qatada's detention in March 2004 said he was at the centre of terrorist activity in Britain associated with al-Qaida.

"He is a truly dangerous individual," he said. "We have no doubt that his beliefs are extreme and are indeed a perversion of Islam for the purposes of encouraging violence against non-Muslims and Muslims who are or have been supportive of Americans."

In 1999, Qatada reportedly made a speech advocating the killing of Jews and the attacking of Americans in which he also stated there was no difference between English people, Jews and Americans.

In the CNN interview, he said he belonged to no organisation but there was nothing to stop "anyone who belongs to al-Qaida or any other organisation to listen to me, ask my opinion or learn from me".