In the opening remarks of his trial, the prosecution alleged that Hamza turned London's Finsbury Park mosque into “the base of operations for the global export of violence and terror.” 
 
 “Abu Hamza was not just a preacher of religion,” Edward Kim, assistant US attorney, said in opening arguments. “He was a trainer of terrorists and he used the cover of religion so he could hide in plain sight in London. 
 
 In response, the defence said that he may have said some outrageous things, but Nelson Mandela was long listed as a terrorist. 
 
 Joshua Dratel portrayed the cleric as an “independent thinker” who was seeking a “third way” between the “extremes” of Osama bin Laden, the late al-Qaeda leader, and George W Bush, the former US president. 
 
 Mr Dratel sought to depict his client as a misunderstood historical figure whose inflammatory words are now being taken out of context. “For decades, Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist and now he is an icon,” he observed. “Things change.” 
 
 British "supergrass" testimony 
 
 Saajid Badat, a British terrorist “supergrass”, lived at the Finsbury Park mosque, and was seen as a key ally of Hamza's. 
 
 He described meeting Osama bin Laden, and told how the Al Qaeda leader hugged him and “wished me good luck in my mission” at the end of their meeting in Afghanistan in November 2001, two months after the September 11 attacks. 
 
 Badat, who was released from prison in 2010 after agreeing to testify in terrorism cases in Britain and the US, also said that he discussed plans for an attack on Canary Wharf with Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, the mastermind of the September 11 atrocities. 
 
 Badat testified that he met Feroz Abbasi - another young British Muslim described by prosecutors as a “terror lieutenant” deployed by Abu Hamza – at a jihadi training camp in Afghanistan and translated for him when he was asked if he would conduct attacks on American and Jewish targets. 
 
 Mr Abbasi had worked at the Finsbury Park mosque as a security guard before moving to Afghanistan. He was captured by US forces after the overthrow of the Taliban regime in late 2001 and held at the Guantánamo Bay detention centre for four years, but then released without charge. 
 
 Yemen hostage Margaret Thompson describes human shield terror 
 
 Margaret Thompson was one of 16 Western tourists snatched by terrorists in the Yemen in December 1998, and told of the terrifying moment hostages were used as human shields. 
 
 As Yemeni soldiers attempted a rescue, one of the abductors told the British-led tour party: “It’s goodbye to you all.” 
 
 Her voice cracking with emotion, Mrs Thompson said: “I hoped he meant there were getting ready to release us but I thought we were going to die.” 
 
 Three British tourists and an Australian died in the attack. 
 
 Mrs Thompson stared at Hamza as she told the jury how she was shot during the rescue attempt. 
 
 “There was much more gunfire at that point. I started to fall forward and hit the ground. I was hit in the leg with a bullet from behind, it was my left leg. I was falling forward and my legs flipped forward under me. 
 
 “I fell backwards and slid into a bush. I was wearing a scarf, so I took the scarf off and put it into the wound. 
 
 Mrs Thompson, now retired and living in Texas, spent weeks in Yemen and London hospitals having surgery. 
 
 Hamza worked with MI5 to keep London safe, says lawyer 
 
 Hamza was in reality working secretly with British intelligence "to keep the streets of London safe" by "cooling hotheads", his lawyer claimed. 
 
 Holding up what he said were reports from Scotland Yard, Joshua Dratel described the cleric as an "intermediary" who cooperated with MI5 and the police to try to end foreign hostage-takings and defuse tensions with the Muslim community in Britain. 
 
 He said that Hamza expressed his true "intent" in discussions with Scotland Yard and MI5. 
 
 "It goes to the theme of our defence that he was an intermediary, that MI5 asked him on multiple times to act in hostage situations, cool down the community and maintain a sense of order," he argued. 
 
 Praising the 9/11 attacks 
 
 The jury was shown videos of him praising the 9/11 hijackers, as they sat in a courtroom a few streets from the scene of the attacks at Ground Zero. 
 
 The panel of 12 saw an interview in which Hamza said he was "happy" about the September 11 2001 attacks in which terrorists flew planes in to the World Trade Center. 
 
 In another video, the Egyptian-born cleric said that that he approved of the suicide bombing of the USS Cole by al-Qaeda operatives in 2000 which left 17 American sailors dead. 
 
 "My wife turned me to Islam" 
 
 Hamza claimed it was his first wife, an Englishwoman, who persuaded him to start to study Islam with her because she became interested in the religion, he explained. 
 
 “She was persistent,” he said. “She pushed too hard.” 
 
 The Egyptian-born cleric worked as a hotel receptionist, a bouncer and even briefly as the co-manager of a strip club in London’s Soho district after moving to Britain in 1979 aged 21, he said. 
 
 “They were small jobs to make money and enjoy myself – a normal Western life,” he told the jury after explaining that he came from a non-religious family in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria “where we always looked for a Western life, American style”. 
 
 Claims he lost hands in an accidental explosion in Lahore 
 
 Hamza has previously claimed he lost his hands and an eye while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during the early 1990s. 
 
 But during the trial he said he was injured during an explosives accident while working on a road project with the Pakistan military in 1993. 
 
 And he admitted he saw little fighting while in Afghanistan where he “fired a couple of bullets” but “it was very quiet when I was there” and he was responsible for health and safety of fighters. 
 
 The closing statements 
 
 Ian McGinley, prosecuting, summed up the case by telling the court that Hamza "devoted his life to violent jihad." 
 
 He said: “He instructed his followers that jihad fighting was religious war. Why do his words matter? Because they match his actions, they match his crimes.” 
 
 But Hamza's lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, said the government's case boiled down to incendiary statements that gained the preacher a reputation among radical Muslims – rather than anything he actually did. 
 
 "A lot, if not the majority, of their evidence was his words, not his deeds," Mr Schneider said during his closing remarks 
 
 "Can someone who has ranted and raved for years about anti-American statements get a fair trial in front of a New York jury in the shadows of the World Trade Center? 
 
 "He cannot keep his mouth shut. That's how he is. He doesnt avoid the tough questions. Sometimes he's firey, sometimes he's engaging. 
 
 "He is opening his mouth saying damaging, unflattering things, drawing attention to himself, saying look at me, I'm outrageous, follow me." ||||| Story highlights Sentencing is set for September 9 
 
 A federal jury considered 11 terrorism-related counts against Abu Hamza al-Masri 
 
 He was accused of conspiring to kidnap Americans in Yemen, open terror camp in Oregon 
 
 On the stand, al-Masri criticized bin Laden and the Taliban 
 
 A federal jury in New York on Monday found radical Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri guilty of charges that he aided terrorists in incidents that span the globe, from a remote Oregon ranch to the dusty desert of the Arabian Peninsula. 
 
 Abu Hamza al-Masri faced 11 criminal counts for allegedly aiding kidnappers during a 1998 hostage-taking in Yemen; sending a young recruit to jihadists in Afghanistan; violating U.S. sanctions against the Taliban; and attempting to establish an al Qaeda-style training camp on the West Coast of the United States. 
 
 The jury deliberated for more than 12 hours over two days. 
 
 Al-Masri was found guilty on all counts, and showed no discernible reaction as the verdict was read. 
 
 "The defendant stands convicted, not for what he said, but for what he did," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, describing al-Masri as "not just a preacher of faith, but a trainer of terrorists. 
 
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 "Once again our civilian system of justice has proven itself up to the task of trying an accused terrorist and arriving at a fair and just and swift result." 
 
 The high-profile London mosque leader gained notoriety for the metal hook he's sometimes depicted wearing in place of one of his missing hands, but he sported only an occasional writing prosthesis in the Manhattan courtroom. Contrary to stories that he lost the limbs in battle, al-Masri testified, his maiming was the result of an engineering accident. 
 
 The government's three-week case against al-Masri was an effort to connect the dots between the defendant and events thousands of miles away, through key witnesses who often had never met the cleric themselves and testified in exchange for leniency or protection. 
 
 trial highlight was al-Masri taking the stand in his own defense and accusing federal prosecutors of using "pay-as-you-go witnesses" and a "cut-and-paste" approach to take inflammatory comments out context, including statements about his admiration for late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. 
 
 "The deliberations confirmed our fears they would focus on words and ideas rather than the evidence," said defense attorney Jeremy Schneider, after the verdict was announced. The speed of deliberations, he said, make it clear jurors "walked in with a foregone conclusion." 
 
 Defendant claims he was a 'mouthpiece' 
 
 During his four days of testimony, al-Masri described bin Laden as a dangerous hothead in charge of an unfocused organization that has betrayed the Afghan people. As for the Taliban regime, it doesn't need his money; it has "millions," yet doesn't feed its own people, he said. 
 
 But in Manhattan, by invoking 9/11 and bin Laden's name, al-Masri mused, "You can convict a person of killing the Dead Sea." 
 
 The 56-year-old cleric denied any part in the bumbling effort to launch a jihad training camp in Oregon and said he'd acted only as a "mouthpiece" in the fight against the Yemeni government when the hostage drama played out. 
 
 During his closing argument, Schneider warned jurors not to be distracted by the "quantity of irrelevant evidence" the prosecution presented, including photographs of bin Laden found on computers in the defendant's London home and snippets of his videotaped orations. 
 
 Al-Masri was convicted in the United Kingdom of inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder with his fiery sermons, but the charges against him in the United States are not for hateful speech or possessing photographs or other materials. 
 
 Prosecution: Al-Masri could 'work a crowd' 
 
 The prosecution played video clips of al-Masri endorsing suicide missions and saying the killing of non-believers is permissible, comparing them to cows or pigs. 
 
 Prosecution exhibits also included the 10-volume "Encyclopedia of Jihad" recovered from the al-Masri family residence, with topics ranging from bomb-making to personal hygiene in the battlefield. 
 
 "It's a very slippery slope to use someone's library against them," Schneider said in his closing. 
 
 The attorney conceded that his client sent money to benefit destitute widows and a secret girl's school in a Taliban-controlled territory, prohibited under U.S. sanctions -- the final charge of the 11-count indictment against al-Masri, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison. 
 
 In the closing argument for the government, Ian McGinley told jurors the tapes and photographs reveal "the real Abu Hamza": a screaming hatemonger -- far from the calm, tolerant, and sometimes quite funny man they'd seen on the witness stand. 
 
 "He knows how to work a crowd," said McGinley. 
 
 Key witness has checkered past 
 
 As for the quality of the government witnesses, McGinley said prosecutors didn't choose the co-conspirators, and that criminal trials involve unsavory characters. 
 
 pivotal witness for the prosecution was James Ujaama , a Seattle man who testified he conceived of the idea for the Oregon training camp and faxed a pitch letter to al-Masri. 
 
 "It looks just like Afghanistan," the letter reads and repeatedly points out that all planned activities would be legal in the "pro-gun," "pro-militia" state. 
 
 Two men were sent from London by al-Masri to train recruits, said Ujaama, but the pair left after realizing his claims of eager trainees, weapons stockpiles, and efforts to build housing and a mosque were lies. Only two run-down trailers sat atop the barren ranch land, and its sole training facility was a deer-shaped target in a dry creek bed. 
 
 Al-Masri claimed the men made their way to Oregon on their own, after fishing Ujaama's fax from his trash can; he himself considered the pitch "a hallucination," he testified. 
 
 Ujaama also testified he agreed to escort a young recruit to an Afghani front-line commander for al-Masri, but said he actually left his young charge stranded and alone in a Pakistani hotel. 
 
 Ujaama is on his second cooperation agreement with the government, having violated his first one by fleeing to Belize. He spent approximately six years in jail for his own role in the Oregon venture and testified that he continues to receive a monthly stipend from the government for living expenses. 
 
 He also admitted a range of past criminal endeavors, including peddling knockoff watches and pirate CDs, and setting up an airport bathroom rendezvous to sell a computer without paying UK sales tax. 
 
 Another witness against al-Masri, Saajid Badat, testified that he later saw the abandoned recruit at the infamous Al Farouq training camp -- a key point to the allegation al-Masri in fact aided terrorists in Afghanistan. 
 
 A trainee himself at the time, Badat has admitted he conspired with failed shoe bomber Richard Reid on a plot to take down airliners, and, in fact, received shoe bombs from alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Badat backed out, he testified, after reconnecting with his parents. 
 
 As part of a cooperation agreement in the United Kingdom, Badat saw his own potential sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole dwindle and ultimately served approximately six years, he said. Badat testified via teleconference from London to avoid facing pending charges in the United States. 
 
 Young recruit a courtroom no-show 
 
 A glaring absence on the witness stand was the young recruit himself, Uganda-born computer student Feroz Abbasi. He was apprehended in Afghanistan as part of a roundup by U.S. forces in 2002, according to testimony. 
 
 Jurors were not told Abbasi was released without charges after spending about two years at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now living in the United Kingdom, Abbasi declined to testify in al-Masri's case, according to defense attorneys. 
 
 The most unassailable of key prosecution witnesses was Mary Quin, who was taken hostage with her fellow travelers during a trip through Yemen in 1998, allegedly as leverage for prisoners held by the Yemeni government -- including al-Masri's own stepson. Four of the tourists were killed during a harrowing shootout with government forces, Quin testified. 
 
 Quin later traveled to London to confront al-Masri; the cleric agreed to let her record the conversation. On the tape, which was played for jurors in court, al-Masri falls short of confessing he knew of the kidnapping plan ahead of time, but uses a phrase prosecutors have said is devastating evidence of his involvement: "We never thought it would be that bad." 
 
 The two criminal counts relating to the Yemen kidnapping plot both carry a possible life sentence. Sentencing is set for September 9. ||||| U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara (R) speaks during a news conference about the verdict in the Abu Hamza al-Masri case outside the Manhattan Federal Courthouse in New York May 19, 2014. 
 
 A file photograph dated February 7, 2003 shows Muslim cleric Sheikh Abu Hamza (2L) outside the North London Mosque at Finsbury Park surrounded by supporters. 
 
 Courtroom deputy Joseph Pecorino (R) reads the verdict alongside Judge Katherine Forrest (background) and Abu Hamza al-Masri (L), the radical Islamist cleric facing U.S. terrorism charges, in this artist's sketch in New York May 19, 2014. 
 
 Courtroom deputy Joseph Pecorino (R) reads the verdict alongside Judge Katherine Forrest (background) and Abu Hamza al-Masri (L), the radical Islamist cleric facing U.S. terrorism charges, in this artist's sketch in New York May 19, 2014. 
 
 NEW YORK London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri was convicted of terrorism charges in New York on Monday, following a four-week trial that shined a spotlight on the preacher's controversial anti-Western statements. 
 
 After deliberating for less than two days, a jury of eight men and four women found Abu Hamza, 56, guilty on all 11 counts he faced, handing Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara his second high-profile terrorism conviction in three months. 
 
 Abu Hamza could face life in prison when he is sentenced in September. 
 
 Prosecutors had charged the one-eyed, handless Abu Hamza with providing a satellite phone and advice to Yemeni militants who kidnapped Western tourists in 1998, an operation that led to the deaths of four hostages. 
 
 Abu Hamza also was accused of dispatching two followers to Oregon to establish a militant training facility and sending an associate to Afghanistan to help al Qaeda and the Taliban. 
 
 His lawyers claimed the case relied largely on the incendiary language in his sermons at London's Finsbury Park mosque, which earned him notoriety as one of Britain's most prominent radical Islamic voices. 
 
 Many of his words were played at trial, including an interview in which Abu Hamza expressed support for the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States. 
 
 Defense lawyer Joshua Dratel said the relatively quick verdict demonstrated that the jurors reacted emotionally to the inflammatory statements rather than sticking to the evidence. 
 
 "This is what we feared, that there would be no deliberations at all, essentially," he said. "Beliefs are not a crime." He said he plans to appeal the conviction. 
 
 But the jury's foreman, Howard Bailynson, a 44-year-old Xerox employee, told reporters there was "no doubt" Abu Hamza received a fair trial. 
 
 Abu Hamza testified in his own defense, denying he sent anyone to Oregon or Afghanistan and claiming he became involved in the kidnapping only after it began, when he offered to negotiate a peaceful resolution. 
 
 Prosecutors countered with evidence that he spoke with the Yemeni militants' leader the night before the kidnapping and that the two men who traveled to Oregon said he had sent them. 
 
 Speaking briefly to reporters, Bharara said the verdict proved once again that the U.S. justice system can handle high-profile terrorism trials. 
 
 "Abu Hamza attempted to portray himself as a preacher of faith," he said. "He was, instead, a trainer of terrorists." 
 
 In March, a different jury found Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, guilty of terrorism-related charges. 
 
 Abu Hamza, who was indicted in the United States in 2004 under his birth name, Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, spent eight years in prison in the Britain for inciting violence before his 2012 extradition. 
 
 During the trial, Abu Hamza testified that he lost his arms and eye in an accidental explosion in Pakistan 20 years ago, contradicting widespread reports that he was injured while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. 
 
 (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Chris Reese and Mohammad Zargham)
– A radical London imam who was extradited to the US on terrorism charges was found guilty today on all 11 counts, Reuters reports. Prosecutors accused Abu Hamza al-Masri—who is partially blind and has no hands—of trying to build a terrorist training camp in Oregon, shipping off a young jihadist recruit to Afghanistan, defying US sanctions imposed on the Taliban, and aiding in the 1998 Yemen kidnapping of 16 tourists, CNN reports. He had pleaded not guilty and stood trial for four weeks in New York City, facing a jury of four women and eight men. Now the 56-year-old may spend the rest of his life in prison. The prosecution focused on connecting Abu Hamza to events half-way around the world, often using witnesses who hadn't met him and appeared in exchange for leniency or protection. Taking the stand in his own defense, the cleric accused prosecutors of using "pay-as-you-go witnesses" who took his remarks out of context. Much of the trial focused on his anti-Western statements, and videos were shown of Abu Hamza praising the 9/11 attackers, the Telegraph reports. His defense attorney portrayed him as an "independent thinker" who was seeking a "third way" between the philosophies of George W Bush and Osama bin Laden, but prosecutor Ian McGinley described the cleric as a man who "devoted his life to violent jihad."