The arrest today of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical Muslim cleric, on an American extradition warrant marks the latest twist in the story of a man who has rapidly become a hate figure and symbol of Islamic fundamentalism in Britain.

Abu Hamza, 47, an Egyptian civil engineering student who emigrated to Britain in search of a better life, is famed for his missing eye and hand, which he claims he lost while fighting jihad in Afghanistan, which is replaced by a hook.

In the years since President Bush declared his war on terror Abu Hamza has gone from relative obscurity to being a regular target of hostility in the British press for his vocal criticism of the West in his controversial sermons.

The cleric, who preached every Friday outside Finsbury Park mosque in north London, has sparked outrage with sermons castigating Britain as a "vampire" state and claims that the invasion of Iraq is a "war against Islam".

He also claimed that the September 11 attacks in the US were a Jewish plot, and called the space shuttle disaster - in which an Israeli astronaut died - a "punishment from Allah".

Abu Hamza has denied being a member of al-Qaeda, although he has described Osama bin Laden as "a good guy" and has claimed that anyone who "disagrees with the West" is labelled a terrorist. US intelligence services regard him as a key member of al-Qaeda's European cell.

For many people he is a bogey figure who represents their worst fears about Islamic fundamentalism, yet for others he is simply a shameless publicity seeker who does not deserve the level of media coverage he so regularly attracts.

Abu Hamza was born in Alexandria, Egypt and moved to Britain in 1980. He appeared to have embraced Western life when, in 1984, he married a British woman, Valerie Fleming.

He funded his studies in civil engineering by working as a bouncer in a Soho nightclub, where he developed a reputation for socialising and being a heavy drinker.

But throughout the 1980s, he slowly began to turn towards a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran. It has been suggested that racial abuse of his son turned him into a critic of Western society.

Abu Hamza returned to Egypt in 1990 after divorcing his wife and reinvented himself as a Muslim "holy man" or sheikh.

He travelled to Pakistan and then onto Afghanistan, which was at the time gripped by a civil war as differing factions fought to fill the power vacuum left by the retreat of Russian troops.

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