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Ammon News -
* Mammoth surveillance operation costing £100,000 a week
* MI5 and police officers follow him on foot when he leaves home
* Phone listener and 24 hour translator on hand to intercept calls

AMMONNEWS - The cost of keeping watch on Abu Qatada on bail comes to about £5million a year, it has emerged - a hundred times more than keeping him in a high-security jail.
The Islamist cleric is subject to a surveillance operation costing a £100,000 every week, as authorities monitor his every move to ensure he does not escape.

Now police are warning the phenomenal cost of keeping an eye on Qatada is diverting money from murder investigations, and could lead to up to 12 going unsolved each year.

Peter Smyth, chairman of the Police Federation, told the Sunday Times: 'You are talking about the cost of three murder squads and the average murder squad would probably be dealing with between eight and 12 murders a year.

'These surveillance teams are meant to be tackling active criminals.'

Qatada was released on bail two weeks ago to live with his wife and children at the home in Wembley, London, after six-and-a-half years in Long Lartin prison, Worcestershire.

The Jordanian cleric - whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman - is facing deportation to stand trial over terror charges in his home country.

But a judge ruled he should be released after he applied for bail and human rights judges in Europe ruled he could not be deported without assurances that evidence gained through torture would not be used against him.

According to his bail conditions, Qatada must observe a 22-hour curfew which allows him out of his home for just two one-hour periods each day.

He is banned from using mobile phones and is only allowed to meet people who have been security vetted and pre-approved by the Home Secretary.

In order to enforce the tight security regime, dozens of police officers and intelligence agents have been drafted in for an intensive surveillance operation.

Every word spoken on Qatada's home telephone is monitored, recorded and analysed by an officer at a police listening station. An interpreter is on hand to transcribe conversations held in Arabic.

A court order allows the security services to install inside Qatada's home 'such equipment as may be considered necessary to ensure compliance' with his bail.

The means a network of cameras and microphones will have been installed throughout the house, monitoring and recording every word he and his family utter.

The Ministry of Justice has contracted Serco Electronic Monitoring, a private security company, to monitor his curfew by means of an electronic tag.

The tag transmits a signal to a monitoring unit installed at his house, which then relays the information back to the company's monitoring centre.

In the two hours he is allowed out of his home, Qatada's movements are heavily restricted and he is confined to a marked boundary believed to be just a few miles in circumference.

Marked police cars are permanently stationed outside Qatada's house, but when he sets foot outside he is also tailed by mobile surveillance teams based in unmarked cars and on foot.

Although most of these will be police from the Met's covert surveillance teams, some are experienced intelligence specialists from MI5's A4 surveillance department.
The revelations of the precise details of the expensive surveillance regime come just a week after it emerged it could take years to deport Qatada back to his home country.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is due to fly out to Jordan to try to drum out a deal that could clear the way for him to be sent back there.
But even if she does reach an agreement with Jordanian authorities, Qatada could launch a fresh legal challenge in British courts and possibly Europe.
The legal battle could potentially last a number of years, meaning Qatada would be allowed to stay in the UK until it came to a conclusion.


* Daily Maill