In a just world, radical Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, deprived of his hooks after his extradition to New York last weekend, would never get them back.
Alas, that would be grounds for a civil-rights lawsuit.
So, as The Post reported yesterday, al-Masri — who lost an eye and both hands in a mysterious explosion — will be treated to new appendages on the taxpayers’s dime.
The hooks were confiscated for obvious reasons: They’re potential weapons.
Al-Masri, who arrived here from Britain after losing an eight-year extradition battle, faces trial in federal court for allegedly conspiring to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
His London mosque was itself a training ground for such high-profile terrorists as “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.
He’s also charged with helping kidnap 16 hostages, including two Americans, in Yemen in 1998. Yesterday, he pled not guilty at his arraignment in federal court.
But why is al-Masri in federal court — and a federal detention center — anyway?
He belongs at Guantanamo Bay, facing a military trial.
Forget for a moment that New York remains the No. 1 terrorist target on the globe — and that having major terrorism suspects detained just compounds the threat.
Al-Masri’s ilk are waging open warfare against this country and its people.
Their attacks are not crimes so much as they are acts of war — and should be treated as such.
Congress forced President Obama to reverse course on his 2008 campaign promise to shutter Gitmo and relocate all its detainees.
Moving those cases to the US courts and processing terrorists like ordinary criminal defendants simply makes no sense.