Britain wanted to push through an extradition request...

Britain wanted to push through an extradition request for Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Muslim cleric, as quickly as possible so he could stand trial in the United States on charges of aiding terrorists, the government said. "I want to see if we can get the extradition request speeded through," UK Home Secretary (interior minister) David Blunkett told BBC Radio. Hamza could face the death penalty for hostage-taking in the United States, but Britain, which abolished capital punishment 35 years ago, would extradite him only if it received written assurances the death penalty would not be imposed. Hamza was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on May 27 on a US extradition order. An 11-count indictment filed by U.S. prosecutors accused him of seizing hostages in a 1998 attack in Yemen that resulted in the deaths of four people. Yemen, where Abu Hamza's son served time in prison on terrorism charges, had long sought his extradition over the 1998 attacks, but Blunkett said Britain would not agree to send him to a country where he would have faced the death penalty.