David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, would say only that a suspect had been arrested on Wednesday under the antiterrorist laws. Security sources last night named the suspect as Abu Qatada.

The radical 42-year-old Muslim cleric, whose real name is Sheikh Omar Mahmood Abu Omar, has been accused by police in eight countries of being a pivotal figure in the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

He was arrested at a council house in Bermondsey, South London, in a joint operation by Scotland Yard Anti-Terrorist Branch detectives and MI5 agents. He is now in Belmarsh top security prison.

His arrest is a major success for Britain and will be welcomed by the White House and European leaders who have been shown secret intelligence on Abu Qatada’s role in bin Laden’s network. He is alleged to have recruited figures like Zacharias Moussaoui, the “20th hijacker” and the “shoe bomber”, Richard Reid.

Intelligence chiefs in Italy, Germany and France say they have evidence that al-Qaeda agents planning bomb and chemical attacks were in close contact with Abu Qatada. Some, like the leader of an al-Qaeda cell in Spain, also made frequent trips to London to visit him.

Abu Qatada has been on the run in Britain for ten months after disappearing just hours before new laws came into force which allowed police to pick up and intern foreign terrorist suspects.

His name is understood to have been at the top of the list for arrest but last December he slipped away from his home in Acton, West London, in a people carrier, taking his heavily pregnant wife and four children with him.

His arrest comes just days after he broke cover to justify the September 11 attacks. Abu Qatada released a ten-page document entitled The Legal Vision for the September 11 Events on the internet in which he outlines the “moral” case for the attacks, and praises bin Laden for challenging the United States.

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