The extremist Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri supports five international terror groups including al-Qaeda, a court heard today.

The Government was outlining evidence against Abu Hamza for the first time, in what should have been the first day of a three week hearing to decide whether he should be deported from Britain for inciting terrorism.

But after the 46-year-old North London preacher failed to turn up to the hearing or to file a single line of evidence with the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, Mr Justice Ouseley ruled that the hearing should be delayed.

He gave Abu Hamza until January 10 2005 to prepare his case, a further nine months' stay in his battle to avoid being sent to the Yemen, where he faces terrorism charges.

Ian Burnett, QC, counsel for the Government, expressed his irritation with the delay, which has been fuelled by a wrangle over Abu Hamza's estimated £250,000 legal aid costs.

He told the tribunal: "We have just been told that Mr Hamza has chosen not to prepare his appeal over the last few months.

"This is his appeal and if he carries on like this, maybe the time will come when we might be making an application to you to dismiss the appeal."

Mr Justice Ouseley also urged the cleric to work on his case before the legal aid issue is finalised.

The Government was nonetheless able to reveal for the first time the nature of its case against the 46-year-old preacher, who it says provides support to five terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda.

Mr Burnett outlined three further reasons why the Government took the unique step of stripping Abu Hamza of British citizenship a year ago.

These were his alleged backing for young Muslims going to terrorist training camps for jihad; his use of Finsbury Park Mosque as a safe haven for extremists who wanted to plan acts of terrorism; and his promotion of violence and anti-western feeling in his sermons.

Mr Burnett told Mr Justice Ouseley that as well as providing support and advice to al-Qaeda, Abu Hamza also backed Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, the Islamic Army of Aden based in Yemen - which claimed to have bombed the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 - an Egyptian militant group called the EIJ and a Kashmiri group called the HUA.

Abu Hamza was born in Egypt and came to Britain in the 1970s. He says that he lost both hands and the sight of one eye while fighting against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s, giving him his scarred and hook-handed appearance.

He married a British woman and gained British citizenship in 1981. He rose to prominence for his fiery preaching at the Finsbury Park Mosque, where one of the September 11 suspects, Zacharias Moussaoui, and the shoe-bomber, Richard Reid, were in his congregation.

After the September 11 attacks he described the atrocity as a Jewish plot.

Mr Burnett said that Abu Hamza had made the mosque a "haven for extremists" and had "promoted anti-Western sentiment and violence through his teaching".

The mosque was shut down by its trustees after an anti-terrorist raid in January 2003.

In February 2003 Abu Hamza was banned from preaching there by the Charity Commission because of the "extreme and political" content of his sermons. Since then he has led Friday prayers on the pavement outside the mosque.

Last April Abu Hamza became the first person to have his British citizenship revoked under new powers allowing the Government to remove rights from immigrants who "seriously prejudice the country's interest".

He and his solicitor Muddassar Arani filed an appeal, but the legal process has dragged on.

Abu Hamza is being funded by legal aid, since a review committee of the Legal Services Commission ruling last week.

This decision has still to be approved by the Treasury and the UN Security Council, which forbids the use of public money to fund terrorism. Abu Hamza is on a UN proscribed list of al-Qaeda associates. A Government spokesman has said that it will contest paying legal aid to the preacher.