THE young Egyptian held the sheet of paper in both hands and, in heavily accented English, read the words in front of him carefully: “I, Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, do solemnly and sincerely affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to the law.”

Mostafa then signed the official form, the signature formally witnessed by his solicitor and the document placed in the out-tray to be posted to the Home Office.

Ten days later a certificate of naturalisation, declaring him to be a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, dropped through the letterbox of Mostafa’s London council flat.

For the man who would become known as Abu Hamza al-Masri — possibly the most hated man in Britain and someone who would angrily despise British values — this was quite an achievement. British citizenship was a goal he had pursued almost from the day he stepped off a flight from Cairo seven years before.

Abu Hamza had accomplished his aim with a display of ruthless and cynical dishonesty. Had his applications for refugee status been properly scrutinised by immigration officials, he could have been deported as an illegal immigrant and a fraudster long before he stirred up trouble. Those investigations were never undertaken. Instead, on Tuesday, 29 April 1986, he swore allegiance to the Crown and won the right to stay in Britain for ever.

Ironically, he took that oath of allegiance as he was on the cusp of his conversion to a brand of political and religious fanaticism that would lead him to regard his adopted country as a godless, decadent land whose Queen deserved the sword rather than his allegiance.

But Abu Hamza, the fanatical preacher of hatred, was a completely different person from Mostafa, the 21-year-old student who disembarked at Heathrow airport on 13 July 1979.

He arrived in Britain in the year of Margaret Thatcher’s election, the IRA murder of Lord Mountbatten and the rise of a Pope who would challenge communism. But the changes that would have the longest-lasting global impact were happening in the Muslim world that Mostafa was leaving behind. For 1979 was also the year of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, an event that revived the concept of jihad in defence of the Muslim religion and lands. It spawned war without end for the Afghan people and the brand of global terrorism that would be propagated by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda.

Such things could not have been further from the mind of the young Mostafa Kamel Mostafa when he left his middle-class home in Alexandria.

From the moment he arrived in London, he wanted to stay — not least because he could avoid national service in the military back home.

Abu Hamza was a powerfully-built young man with a thick mop of curly hair, golden brown skin, an infectious smile and a mischievous twinkle in his eye. London offered things he hankered after more than a degree in engineering and years in the army — most especially women and wealth.

“He had this huge chest, huge broad shoulders and big biceps, he had awesome genetics,” remembered a friend. “He just had to look at a weight bar and he’d put on more muscle. He wore jeans and T-shirts and usually had a gold chain around his neck. He was cool and, yes, he was a womaniser. He was an Egyptian after all, what do you expect?” Although his one-month visitor’s visa ruled out working, the young Mostafa quickly found a job and liked the feel of English pound notes in his pocket. A month after his arrival he applied to extend his stay by another month. Permission was granted without question, on the same “no work” condition that he, like many others, was blissfully ignoring.

One of his several jobs was as night porter in a bed and breakfast hotel not far from Paddington rail station. Here, in the spring of 1980, he met Valerie Traverso, a mother of three young children who was pregnant by Michael Macias, the husband from whom she had recently separated.

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