Abu Qatada is launching what could be his last appeal against deportation to Jordan, where he faces terror charges.
The home secretary says he is a threat to national security but he has never been charged with an offence in the UK.
The radical cleric has been fighting extradition for seven years.
His lawyer is expected to tell the Special Immigration Appeals Commission he will not get a fair trial in Jordan because its promise not to use evidence obtained by torture cannot be trusted.
Last week, in an unrelated case, the government completed the extradition of the cleric Abu Hamza to the US.
Abu Qatada is considered to be one of the most influential supporters of violent jihad in Europe.
The Palestinian-born Jordanian preacher has been described as the spiritual leader of the mujihadeen and security chiefs say that he played a key ideological role in spreading support for suicide bombings.
He has never been charged or tried in the UK but has been subject to lengthy periods of detention since 2001.
Abu Qatada's case will be heard at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a semi-secret court that deals with national security deportations where some of the sensitive material cannot be disclosed in public. His legal battle against removal from the UK has now lasted more than seven years.
- 1993: Arrives in UK, given asylum because he was tortured in Jordan
- 1999-2000: Convicted in his absence of terrorism charges in Jordan
- 2001: Disappears as government prepares to detain him without charge
- 2002: Tracked down and detained
- 2005: Law Lords say detention unlawful; released but put under form of house arrest
- Aug 2005: Detained for deportation after Jordan provides assurances over his treatment
- 2009: Law Lords approve assurances and deportation
- 2012: European Court largely backs UK - but blocks deportation, saying Jordan must give a fair trial assurance
In January, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the preacher would not face ill-treatment if returned to Jordan. The Strasbourg judges said that a special UK-Jordan agreement over Abu Qatada's treatment, called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), was sound and met European standards of humane treatment.
But the judges said they did not believe he would get a fair trial because a Jordanian court could use evidence against Abu Qatada that had been obtained from the torture of others.
Home Secretary Theresa May has since negotiated a new MOU, covering how Abu Qatada will be tried and these assurances will be at the heart of his appeal at Siac.
His legal team are also expected to argue that political turmoil in Jordan means that the UK government can offer no guarantees as to how the detainee would be treated.
In May, Abu Qatada lost an appeal against his detention after a judge said it was too risky to let him out of jail because MI5 and the police had to devote their resources to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Mr Justice Mitting said the length of time the preacher had been detained was "extraordinary" and "hardly, if at all, acceptable" - but the delays had been caused by the courts taking a "remarkably long time" to deal with the case.
But he added that detention was lawful given that Siac aimed to give its final ruling on the case within a month of the hearing starting on Wednesday.
Mr Justice Mitting said: "The end of the litigation is at last in sight. What Siac has to do is to exercise its judgement, principally, though, perhaps, not entirely, on the issue of whether or not any trial that the appellant would face in Jordan would be flagrantly unfair.
"There is, therefore, a real possibility, I cannot put it higher than that or more precisely than that, that the decision of this commission will actually and finally put an end to this litigation within, at most, a very short time of being handed down."
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