Lord Chief Justice's fury over legal sagas such as Abu Hamza In April the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Hamza and four other suspects would not face inhuman treatment in US jails, and their attempt to appeal to the Grand Chamber in Strasbourg was rejected this week. But Hamza's lawyers then made a new application to the High Court to put his imminent extradition on hold. An interim injunction was issued to prevent his removal and the last-ditch application will be heard by two senior judges next week. It is though that Hamza's legal team will say he should not be extradited because of his allegedly deteriorating mental health. They may also try to halt the process on the grounds that the authorities still have his British passport, which he will need in order to get legal representation in the US. His lawyers have already earned more than half a million pounds in legal aid from representing him, while his incarceration in a high-security unit within Belmarsh jail costs about £50,000 a year. At his annual press conference on Thursday, Lord Judge was asked about the drawn-out Hamza saga and replied: "I'm not going to comment about any individual case, but any case that takes eight years through a whole series of judicial processes to come to a conclusion - and you've made the point that it hasn't yet come to a conclusion - is a source of real fury to me. He went on: "The problem isn't that there isn't a limit on the number of appeals. His intervention was welcomed by politicians, but they said it needed to be followed up with reform of human rights law and appeal processes. Keith Vaz, the chairman of the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "There is no doubt that the process for extraditing Abu Hamza has taken far too long. We need a fast-track system in the ECHR for those being extradited on charges of terrorism. People who are dangerous should be removed as quickly as possible. Dominic Raab, who sits on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, added: "This is refreshing plain talking. I hope the government will ask the Lord Chief Justice for his suggestions for tackling the problem. One major cause of delays has been the proliferation of human rights claims. Charlie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover and Deal, said: "It's clear he is just trying one appeal ground after another. It is an astonishing carry-on. It's time we brought down the curtain on this charade.