Convicted terrorist Abu Hamza - whose followers are said to have mentored one of the Charlie Hebdo killers - has been told he will die behind bars after being sentenced to life years in US prison.

New York Federal Court judge Katherine Forrest said Hamza would never be freed again after being found guilty of 11 terrorism and kidnapping charges, following a 10-year battle by US authorities to extradite him to the States.

The hate preacher will be held in a Supermax federal prison in Colorado, known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, after Judge Forrest was unconvinced by his pleas to remain in a mainstream jail.

The cleric, who sat with pursed lips as he was sentenced, was allowed to make a statement to the court.

He said he accepted he would never be freed again but pleaded to be treated like any other prisoner, so that his human rights were not infringed.

Addressing Hamza, Judge Forrest said she had listened to the pleas for clemency from his family and arguments from his lawyers.

"But," she said, "I do believe there's another side of you, a side that this court views as evil.

"I don't believe that the world would be a safe place with you in 10 years or 20 years.”

She handed him two life sentences and between five and 15 years for on nine other counts.

It came as it was reported one of the suspects in the Paris magazine massacre was taught by one of the hate preacher’s key lieutenants at his Finsbury Park Mosque in London.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, who died in a shoot out today, was a disciple of al-Qaeda operative Djamel Beghal, who allegedly recruited shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, the '20th hijacker' in the 9/11 attacks, while at the mosque.

rting terrorism and murder are justified by religion.

"There is no reason to expect his views to change."

Before sentencing, his lawyers provided a picture of the former bouncer’s spork - a fork and a spoon - attached to his prothestic arm which allows him to eat.

His legal team produced the utensil as part of their argument he should serve his sentence at a prison medical facility instead of a Supermax jail.

Hamza was found guilty in May following a six week trial.

Jurors heard prosecutors call the former strip club boss “not just a preacher of religion but was a trainer of terrorists”

The 56-year-old, whose full name is Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, was convicted over his role in the 1998 kidnapping in Yemen of 16 foreign tourists, of whom four were killed, and of conspiring to set up a militant training camp in Bly, Oregon in late 1999.

(mirror)