ONE of the brothers suspected of carrying out the Paris massacre was mentored by an al Qaida terrorist with links to London's Finsbury Park mosque.

And a former undercover spy said the terror at Charlie Hebdo in which 12 people died was "the legacy of Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza" - two hate preachers once based at the mosque.

Paris terror suspect Cherif Kouachi is a follower of Djamel Beghal, a terrorist who allegedly recruited the shoe bomber Richard Reid, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Beghal, an Algerian who once boasted he had established a large terrorist network across Europe, is said to have recruited Kouachi while he was in prison.

Reda Hassaine, who worked as an MI5 informant at the London mosque, said Beghal was a frequent visitor there in the 1990s, when radical hook-handed cleric Hamza was based there.

Fellow hate preacher Qatada, who was once referred to as ''Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe'' and was finally deported last year after a lengthy legal battle, also gave sermons at the north London mosque.

Linking the radical sermons heard in London with Wednesday's slaughter, Mr Hassaine told The Daily Telegraph: "He (Beghal) was closer to Abu Qatada than to Abu Hamza."

He said: "There is no doubt that you can see the influence of their teachings in him. What happened in Paris was the legacy of Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza."

Hamza will be sentenced for a string of terrorism offences when he appears before a New York judge today.

The 56-year-old faces life in prison after a federal court last year found him guilty of supporting terrorist organisations, including aiding the taking of hostages in Yemen and seeking to set up an al Qaida training camp in the United States.