LONDON: An asylum seeker has boasted how British lawyers will stop his extradition to his homeland in Egypt, where he faces execution for the murder of a six-year-old girl in a terror bomb blast.

Asylum seeker Yasser al-Siri has been suspected of involvement in a series of terrorist incidents since fleeing to London more than a decade ago. But he has so far thwarted efforts to keep him off Britain’s streets.

The Standard has learned the government has now opened talks to send extremists such as al-Siri back to Egypt. An Egyptian embassy source said a deal will ‘definitely’ be signed.

But al-Siri, who denies he is a terrorist and condemned the London bombings, has vowed to block any bid to expel him and warned the efforts of Home Secretary Charles Clarke to deport militants are doomed.

This raises the prospect that Clarke’s plans will become bogged down in protracted court battles costing the taxpayer millions of pounds. It could take three years to expel 10 hardliners, already in custody, to Jordan and Algeria at a cost of £6mn.

Yesterday al-Siri, who lives in Maida Vale, said: “I am not worried about expulsion. My legal team think it is impossible. I don’t think any British judge in the UK can accept any agreement between the UK and any Middle East country like Egypt.

“Any judge here can take this agreement and throw it in the rubbish basket. I still trust the UK with human rights and, while Tony Blair may want to change the laws, there is still the Magna Carta.”

Al-Siri, 42, who has spent time in Belmarsh jail, was sentenced to death in his absence for his alleged role in the failed 1993 assassination of Atef Sedki, Egypt’s then prime minister.

The schoolgirl died and several of her classmates were injured in the car-bomb blast. Al-Siri has always maintained his innocence and insists the charges were based on testimony obtained under torture.

He is also wanted in the US over claims he sent money to a militant who tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. Attempts to extradite him to the US were dismissed by then home secretary David Blunkett, who said that there was insufficient evidence to justify extradition.

In 2001, he was charged in Britain in connection with the assassination of the leader of Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance three days before the September 11 atrocities, but later cleared.

In Britain, he has been linked with al-Muhajiroun, run by banned cleric Omar Bakri Mohamed.

Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak once said he did not understand how people ‘whose hands are drenched in blood’ could get political asylum in Britain.

He asked ‘how the murderer of girls and young students, that is terrorist Yasser al-Siri, can be allowed to carry out his activity freely in Britain?’

Britain has previously refused to hand over al-Siri, who accuses the Egyptian government of framing him. Current rules prevent extradition to a country where a suspect faces the death penalty.

But the July 7 bomb attacks on London prompted new curbs on foreign-born radicals. The government has already signed a deal with Jordan to return Abu Qatada, once dubbed Osama bin Laden’s ambassador to Europe.

Now, an Egyptian embassy source said, there will be ‘a memorandum of understanding to allow extradition, without a doubt. It is definite.’ – London Evening Standard