Murderer Mustaf Jama tried to escape justice even after he was captured and brought back to Britain from his African hideout, it can now be revealed.

A James Bond-style snatch and grab mission was carried out in the Somali desert, where he had fled weeks after the bungled armed robbery during which PCs Sharon Beshenivsky and Teresa Milburn were shot.

Ironically, he chose to lie low in the lawless state of his birth where British officials had declined to deport him as a younger man when he picked up a string of convictions – because it was deemed unsafe to do so.

No figure has been put on the cost of the operation. After he was snatched, Jama tried to challenge the legality of the extradition, arguing last July in court that the process amounted to kidnap, which can now be reported for the first time.

Jama’s barrister, Owen Davies QC, said: “A very large sum of money was being demanded by the requesting state in terms of costs and I still do not know what those costs represent.

“I cannot imagine it costs that much for petrol from one city to the other.”

West Yorkshire Police picked up the bill for bringing Jama back from Africa, with the Home Office and Foreign Office sharing the cost of the operation in Somalia.

Mr Justice Simon threw out the challenge and ruled Jama should stand trial for murder.

The court heard intelligence indicated he was lying low in Somaliland, a region fighting for independence from Somalia.

The British authorities deemed it too dangerous to enter the failed state, so agreed to pay the Somalis to get him out of the country.

In October 2007 the 29-year-old was stopped in his Land Rover at a road block near the village where his father is a warlord, then held overnight by a 15-strong militia in a cell.

From a remote airstrip he was flown four hours to Dubai in a six-seater plane where British and United Arab Emirates police met him and put him on a Virgin flight to Heathrow.

Jama was found with a gun in his waistband at the roadblock – but did not try to blast his way out, unlike the robbers he joined for the Bradford raid.

He came to Britain aged 12 in 1992 after his family claimed they were being persecuted in a tribal uprising, and he was given permission to stay six years later.

His younger brother Yusuf and their friend Muzzaker Shah were jailed for life in 2006 for the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky.

Mustaf Jama’s criminal record began in 1997, aged 17, when he was convicted of affray.

He had since been jailed several times for a string of offences, including robbery, affray and driving matters.

The extradition of Mustaf Jama was held up a prime example of co-operation between the UK and international authorities by Crown Advocate Helen Gaunt, of West Yorkshire Crown Prosecution Service.

Miss Gaunt said: “After the shooting, Mustaf Jama fled the country for Somalia, in the belief that the UK authorities would not be able to get hold of him there and bring him back. He was wrong.

“Mustaf Jama’s successful extradition in November 2007 is a prime example of what can be achieved by co-operation between the UK and international authorities.”

Miss Gaunt said PC Sharon Beshenivsky’s murder led to one of the most challenging and complex cases ever handled by West Yorkshire Crown Prosecution Service.