Home Office officials consider using terror suspect’s frozen assets as cost of deportation battle soars past £500,000 Home Office officials are investigating whether more than £217,000 in frozen bank accounts and assets belonging to Abu Qatada could be used to offset the cost of keeping him in Britain, the home secretary Theresa May has said. Qatada’s legal aid bill already exceeds £500,000 as the 52-year-old continues to resist government moves to deport him to Jordan. May has made strenuous attempts to win sufficient assurances from Amman that evidence obtained under torture would not be used against him. Qatada, whom May has described as a “serious risk to our national security”, was convicted of terror offences there in his absence in 1999. The Home Office appeal against the decision of the special immigration appeals commission last month in Qatada’s favour is to be held early next year.

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