After £1.7m and more than nine years of legal battles, Abu Qatada is deported to Jordan Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed the deportation of Abu Qatada, saying removing the terror suspect from the UK "was a priority for this govt," and that there was a "clear plan" and a "right and stubborn refusal to bow to what many thought inevitable." Mr Cameron tweeted his pleasure at the news just hours after Qatada left Britain aboard a private flight bound for Jordan from RAF Northolt, in west London. The Home Office spent at least £1.7 million during a near decade-long battle to get him out of the country. Shortly after Qatada's plane left the airfield at about 2.45am, Home Secretary Theresa May said: "I am glad that this government's determination to see him on a plane has been vindicated and that we have at last achieved what previous governments, Parliament and the British public have long called for. This dangerous man has now been removed from our shores to face the courts in his own country. I am also clear that we need to make sense of our human rights laws and remove the many layers of appeals available to foreign nationals we want to deport. We are taking steps - including through the new Immigration Bill - to put this right. Following numerous courtroom battles, it was a treaty signed between the UK and Jordan that finally secured Qatada's departure, giving the radical preacher the assurances he needed to leave his taxpayer-funded home behind. The agreement, announced by the Home Secretary earlier this year, aimed to allay fears that evidence extracted through torture will be used against the father of five at a retrial. In a shock decision, Qatada pledged in May to leave Britain - with his family in tow - if and when the treaty was fully ratified, a process that to the relief of many, concluded earlier this week. MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said: "Only 446 days after the Home Secretary said Abu Qatada would be on a plane shortly, he has finally reached the end of the runway. In the end, it was the king of Jordan who secured his departure by agreeing to this treaty. The Home Secretary's legal advisers will have questions to answer as to why they didn't conceive of this scheme earlier which would have prevented a cost to the taxpayer of £1.7 million. Once dubbed Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, Qatada spent his final months in the UK in Belmarsh prison, after breaching a bail condition which restricted use of mobile phones and other communication devices. But Qatada - who has praised the September 11 terror attacks - repeatedly used human rights laws to avoid removal. This argument, originally rejected by British courts, was upheld by judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, forcing Mrs May to seek new legal guarantees from Jordan that his rights would not be breached. Qatada's lawyer Edward Fitzgerald QC then unexpectedly told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) that his client was prepared to leave if the treaty was enshrined in law. "There's never been a time in the last 12 years that Mr Othman (Abu Qatada) and his family could safely return to Jordan," he said. Despite the reassurances, the immigration judges were not satisfied enough to release the cleric from Belmarsh Prison after they heard "jihadist files" were found on digital devices in his home. It was recently disclosed that the lengthy deportation fight has cost the taxpayer more than £1.7 million since 2005, including £647,658 for Qatada's legal aid costs and more than £1 million in Home Office costs for pursuing the case through the courts.