Radical cleric Abu Qatada has been freed from a Jordanian prison after he was cleared of terror charges, ending a decade of legal cases.
Relatives of Abu Qatada, who was deported from the UK to Jordan last year, were waiting to greet the firebrand preacher as he left Muwaqqar jail, 45km from the capital.
The Palestinian-born preacher was found not guilty of conspiring to attack tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations and granted "immediate release", a judicial source said.
He was condemned to death in absentia in 1999 by an Amman court for conspiracy to carry out the terror attacks.
The sentence was immediately commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.
In June, Mr Qatada was acquitted of plotting a terror attack on the American school in Amman for lack of evidence.
Abu Qatada - who was once referred to as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" - was deported from Britain last year after a protracted legal battle involving successive home secretaries.
The preacher had been granted asylum in the UK.
He was stripped of his refugee status in 2002 when he was detained on suspicion of terrorism charges and the British Home Office began legal moves to remove him in 2005.
He was finally flown out in July last year after a memorandum of understanding was signed between the UK and Jordanian governments assuring that he would receive a fair trial and that evidence obtained by torture would not be used.
