Preacher in US terror case to get new arms: Lawyer

NEW YORK (AP) - An Egyptian-born preacher charged in multiple terror plots will be outfitted next week with new prosthetic arms to replace the hooks he used before, his lawyer said on Friday.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa needs all the help he can get while at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York awaiting trial, attorney Mr Jeremy Schneider said after a hearing. Next Tuesday's fitting, announced in court by the judge who will preside at Mustafa's trial, will take place in a facility not constructed with the disabled in mind, Mr Schneider said.

Mustafa, 54, widely known as Abu Hamza al-Masri, was transferred from London earlier this month, along with four other defendants charged with terrorism offences. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with some Seattle men to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon and to helping abduct two American tourists and 14 other people in Yemen in 1998. He has said he lost his arms fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Mustafa, whose new arms will be paid for by the United States government, became well known in the 1990s as his Finsbury Park Mosque in London became a training ground for extremist Islamists, including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid. He had been jailed since 2004 in Britain on separate charges.