A BRITISH al-Qaeda suspect told a judge who ordered his extradition to the United States on terror charges yesterday that he fears he will be sent to Guantanamo Bay and tortured.

Lawyers for Haroon Rashid Aswat, who was brought up in Yorkshire, said that they would appeal against the ruling, which could delay any decision on his removal for many months.

The FBI claims that the former street-market trader tried to set up a terrorist training camp in the backwoods of Oregon for US and British recruits before the attacks on September 11, 2001.

When he was arrested in Zambia last July he reportedly told his captors that he was once a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. He claimed to have met the al-Qaeda leader during his time at a camp in the mountains of Afghanistan where he became an expert in combat training.

US officials told earlier hearings in London that on his trip to Oregon in 1999 Mr Aswat brought CD-Roms with him containing instructions for using explosives and poisons.

The plan was to set up the camp in the town of Bly, which has a population of only 500, but Mr Aswat reportedly found the 160-acre Dog Cry Ranch too dilapidated for his needs.

He allegedly collaborated on the plan with a US computer expert, James Ujaama, who confessed his role in exchange for a reduction in his jail sentence to two years.

Yesterday Mr Aswat was dressed all in black for his brief appearance in the dock at Bow Street. He was flanked by four prison officers as District Judge Timothy Workman read out his judgment. Mr Aswat’s barrister, Paul Bowen, said his client had asked him to say a few words emphasising that he has no links with terrorism. “He wants to say he is an innocent man, that he has nothing to hide and nothing to fear from a trial itself,” Mr Bowen said.

He added: “What he fears is the process he faces in the United States.”

Outside the court his solicitor, Gareth Peirce, described the ruling as outrageous and the charges against him as nonsense.

She said: “The only witness against him in the United States was threatened that if he didn’t plead guilty and co-operate he would be put under military detention.

“It shows the extent to which the United States is manipulating evidence and pressuring witnesses. All that is said about Haroon Aswat is that in 1999 he travelled to a farm in the US which was considering setting up a Muslim community and, after a few days, left. That’s it — that’s the evidence.”

The judge said it was up to the US court to decide whether the evidence was admissible.

Mr Workman added that he had received a diplomatic note from the US Embassy in London last month assuring the British Government that Mr Aswat would not be prosecuted as an enemy combatant.

The note added that Mr Aswat will face a federal court and not a military commission which the US is threatening to use to try some of those held in Guantanamo Bay.

Mr Workman said: “Whilst the note does not provide any personal protection to this defendant I am satisfied that it does bind the Government of the United States of America which in these terms includes the President.”

Mr Aswat’s lawyers claimed the assurance was worthless.

Ms Peirce described Mr Aswat as “a law-abiding man who has committed no crimes anywhere in the world and has a good family in Yorkshire”.

His parents, who originally come from India but who haved lived in Batley for many years, say they lost touch with their son more than ten years ago after he became more extremist in his views and began to criticise their way of life.

An appeal to the High Court by Mr Aswat’s lawyers will delay Charles Clarke’s decision on whether to extradite him.

US authorities have criticised the time it takes for Britain to deal with such requests. Ministers have pledged to speed up the process but, since the September 11 attacks, the UK has extradited only one suspect on terror charges. Rachid Ramda was sent for trial in France after a ten-year legal battle.

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