Hamza ordered to pay back £1m legal aid

The Legal Services Commission, given powers by the High Court to recover assets to the value of his bill, said it would first seize his £250,000 home.

Hamza, 48, was granted legal aid, to defend himself against charges of race hate and incitement to murder, at the Old Bailey last year. He was convicted of six counts and jailed for seven years.

But in January a judge ruled that the hook-handed preacher must meet the costs of defending himself after it emerged that he provided “false information” to the court – and that far from being penniless, he owned valuable property in London.

Yesterday the Legal Services Commission got the green light to recover assets from the firebrand cleric to the value of his £1,088,944.97 legal bill.

It includes more than £41,000 in interest and a further £3,000 to cover the cost of bringing yesterday’s hearing. An LSC source said his four-bedroomed house in Greenford, west London, would be the first target and they would seek to make Hamza bankrupt if he could not pay the rest of his debt.

The source said: “We would seek possession of it and sell it.”

Hamza is fighting extradition to the US, where he is wanted on terror charges.

He faces up to 100 years in jail if found guilty.

He ran up his £1million-plus legal bill using the services of controversial solicitor Mudassar Arani.

Miss Arani, who has represented a string of terrorist suspects, has already submitted claims for £750,000 for work on Hamza’s case but has not sent in her final bill.

Last night she declined to comment on the case when contacted by the Daily Express.

If made bankrupt, Hamza will be unable to obtain further mortgages, loans or credit.

He will be prevented from becoming a director of a limited company and any profits he may make in the future will have to go to his creditors – the LSC.

The imam of the radical Finsbury Park mosque in north London  claimed he was penniless during the original legal costs hearing and that he no longer owned the house.

His lawyers argued yesterday that the LSC had broken assurances at his trial that it would not seek to recover any money until Hamza had exhausted all appeals against his conviction.

He argued that although his challenges have been dismissed by the Appeal Court and the House of Lords he was now in the process of taking the fight to the European Court.

However High Court official Master Rose said Hamza now had no viable defence to the claim for a “recovery of defence costs order”.

Egyptian-born Hamza is estimated to have already cost Britain about £4million in legal aid, state handouts and the bill for policing crowds when he preached his words of hate.

Costs of keeping him behind bars are around £50,000 a year.

His wife Najat Chaffe and six children continue to live off the state, netting £680-a-week in benefits.

They live in a council house in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, valued at £600,000. His children go to private school.