Abu Hamza the radical Muslim cleric will face charges in Britain under the Terrorism Act, it was revealed tonight.

Prosecutors have consulted the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, QC, and have advised police to charge the handless Egyptian cleric with terrorist offences.

Abu Hamza, 47, who was noted for his firebrand, anti-Western sermons when he was the imam of Finsbury Park mosque, is already in Belmarsh jail in south east London as a result of extradition proceedings brought by the United States. He is unlikely to be formally charged until next week.

The decision means Britain risks a high-level disagreement with US officials who wanted to try him in America on a variety of terrorism charges. The English charges will now take precedence, and the preacher will be tried in Britain.

One Whitehall source said last night that a decision to put Abu Hamza on trial in the English courts would result in "some very, very annoyed Americans".

British officials have already had to explain to their US counterparts that Lord Goldsmith, and Government ministers, have no power to interfere with the legal process or to prevent prosecutors deciding to press charges.

The FBI claims that it has been pressing the British authorities to take action against him since the September 11 attacks. The response of British officials until now was that there was not sufficent evidence to bring charges.

Scotland Yard says that Abu Hamza was under investigation before the US requested extradition in May, resulting in his incarceration in Belmarsh. His speeches and appearances outside the North London mosque had been monitored and it is understood that police have questioned former members of his group, the Supporters of Sharia, about the cleric’s activities and funding.

Abu Hamza was arrested in Belmarsh in August by the Metropolitan Police’s Anti-Terrorist Branch, over allegations that he provided support to al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists either through finance, recruiting or logistics.

He was later de-arrested but the investigation was not dropped and the police file, based on inquiries over several months and Abu Hamza’s interviews with detectives, was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The former imam of Finsbury Park mosque will be charged under one of his five names - Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, Abu Hamza, Abu Hamza Al-Masri, Mustafa Kamel and Mustafa Mostafa Kamel Mostafa.

The Home Office says that it will continue with an attempt to strip Abu Hamza of his citizenship. In April he won a nine-month extension in his appeal against the April 2003 decision by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, to strip him of British nationality.

Shortly after Abu Hamza was arrested at his West London home, John Ashcroft, the US Attorney-General, went on television to announce that the cleric would face 11 charges, including kidnapping and plotting to set up al-Qaeda training camps.

Mr Ashcroft said that the FBI wanted to question him over his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of tourists in Yemen in December 1998, in which four holidaymakers died, including three Britons.

He claimed that the cleric used his mosque to funnel money to al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan and sent recruits to terrorist training camps.

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