Continued Deportation Saga

London lawyers for the cleric, who has been in jail since 2006, said Senior District Judge Timothy Workman shouldn't have made the recommendation because evidence gained through torture was being used against al-Masri.

U.S. prosecutors have charged al-Masri with 11 offenses, alleging he attempted to set up a terrorism training camp in Oregon. They also say he sent money and recruits to help the Taliban and al-Qaida. Instead of extraditing him to the U.S., al-Masri should be tried in the U.K., his lawyer Alun Jones said in opening arguments.

``The proper and appropriate forum for trial is the United Kingdom, where the appellant lived at all times,'' Jones said. It is ``proper and just to try the appellant where he is found and where he is said to have committed the crimes, rather than to extradite him to be tried in a jurisdiction which claims a very wide extra-territorial reach.''

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith signed al-Masri's extradition order in February after the U.S. government gave assurances that the preacher wouldn't face the death penalty, the Home Office said at the time.

Lawyers for the U.S. government will make their case later in the hearing at the High Court in London.