"I am extremely disappointed that the courts have granted Abu Qatada bail, albeit with very strict conditions," she said. An eight-page dossier on the conditions of his bail, made public on Tuesday by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), stated that he would be fitted with an electronic cuff, placed under surveillance and on 22-hour-a-day house arrest in his West London home.

He was also banned from associating with a long list of named people, including Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Rachid Ramda, who was convicted in France of masterminding a series of bombings in 1995. Abu Hamza, another firebrand preacher convicted of inciting hatred at a London mosque, was also named. In addition, Abu Qatada would not be allowed to attend any mosques and was banned from using any communications equipment such as mobile phones, computers or access to the internet. Abu Qatada won a lengthy appeal against his extradition from Britain to Jordan in April and at the time, the Home Office Minister, Tony McNulty, pledged the ruling would be appealed and he would not be released.

Described by SIAC as a "truly dangerous individual" who has played a central role in major terrorist activities associated with al-Qaeda, Abu Qatada has, in his absence, been convicted twice in Jordan for conspiracy to carry out bomb attacks on two hotels in Amman in 1998 and for providing finance and advice for bomb attacks in Jordan planned to coincide with the millennium. These convictions were used by his lawyers to argue against extradition in the Court of Appeal on the basis that he could not get a fair trial in his home country.

According to the British Home Office, between 1995 and 1999, Abu Qatada used a Baker Street, central London social club known as the Four Feathers to oversee fatwas or religious demands to kill non-believers. He is said to have been a seminal influence on September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, who had several Abu Qatada videos in his German flat, and he was said to have advised Rachid Ramda, jailed in France for financing the bombing of the Paris Metro in 1995 and Djamel Beghal, jailed in France for plotting to blow up the American embassy in Paris. Spanish authorities believe him to be an associate of Abu Dahdah, who ran terrorist safe houses in Spain and was known to be an associate of the Algerian Abu Doha, who was arrested in the UK seven years ago in connection with a planned attack on Los Angeles International Airport.

- with AP