LONDON, Feb 7: The British Muslim religious figure whose London mosque was the centrepiece of some of the most important terrorism cases of the last decade was sentenced to seven years jail on Tuesday for inciting murder in his sermons.

Egyptian-born Abu Hamza al Masri, 47, was the highest-profile Muslim tried in the UK since the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Police raided Abu Hamza’s mosque in London after the verdict, claiming they had uncovered evidence of terrorist training camps in Britain.

Police said they have had evidence of the camps for years, but it could not be disclosed before the end of the trial.

In Jan 2003, 150 policemen staged a dramatic raid on Finsbury Park Mosque as part of their investigation into a plot to make the deadly poison ricin at a nearby north London apartment.

Among Abu Hamza’s followers who worshipped at the mosque were convicted ‘shoebomber’ Richard Reid and ‘20th hijacker’ in the Sept 11 plot, Zacarais Moussaoui.

Mr Hamza was convicted on 11 counts including soliciting murder, stirring up racial hatred and possessing a training manual ‘of use to terrorists’. The judge ordered him to serve all 11 sentences concurrently, the longest of which was seven years.

Judge Anthony Hughes said he had no idea whether anybody ever acted on Mr Hamza’s violent sermons, but they ‘created a real danger to the lives of innocent people in different parts of the world’.

Mr Hamza could have faced life. He also remains wanted by Washington on charges of attempting to set up a ‘terrorist training camp’ in the state of Oregon, and could be extradited, possibly before serving out his full term in Britain.

Although British police never linked him directly to any specific plot, they long said his mosque acted as a base for militants. British authorities previously tried to revoke his citizenship, but for years brought no criminal case against him.

His conviction for incitement comes as the British government is placing more emphasis on crimes like glorifying terrorism, a trend that has raised free speech concerns.

“Free speech is important in our democratic and multi-faith society, but encouraging murder and inciting hatred against others because of their race will never be tolerated,” the government’s top lawyer, Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith, said in a statement.

‘LONDONISTAN’: Most of the charges for which Abu Hamza Masri was convicted stem from sermons he delivered in the late 1990s, a time when European security services were describing the British capital as ‘Londonistan’, a hotbed for Muslim radicals clustered around Finsbury Park.