UK: Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police

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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2126704,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=15

 

Lock terror suspects up indefinitely say police

Sunday July 15, 2007

The Observer

 

One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form

of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely

without charge.

 

The proposal, put forward by the head of the Association of Police Chief

Officers (Acpo) and supported by Scotland Yard, is highly controversial. An

earlier plan to extend the amount of time suspects can be held without

charge to 90 days led to Tony Blair's first Commons defeat as Prime

Minister. Eventually, the government was forced to compromise on 28 days, a

period which Gordon Brown has already said he wants to extend.

 

The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in

meetings between Brown and senior police officers. Whitehall sources said

the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper

detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the

UK.

 

Ken Jones, the president of Acpo, told The Observer that in some cases there

was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 'as long as it

takes'. He said such hardline measures were the only way to counter the

complex, global nature of terrorist cells planning further attacks in

Britain and that civil liberty arguments were untenable in light of the

evolving terror threat.

 

Jones, a former chair of Acpo's counter-terrorism committee, said: 'We are

now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes. We

are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit. We understand people will be

concerned and nervous, but we need to create a system with sufficient

judicial checks and balances which holds people, but no longer than a day

[more than] necessary.

 

'We need to go there [unlimited detention] and I think that politicians of

all parties and the public have great faith in the judiciary to make sure

that's used in the most proportionate way possible.'

 

The proposal has provoked anger among civil rights groups. 'It is coming to

the point when we have to ask serious questions about the role of Acpo in a

constitutional democracy,' said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil

rights group Liberty. 'We elect politicians to determine legislation and we

expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for

internment.' Internment was last used in Britain during the Gulf war against

Iraqis suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's army. It has also been used

against terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland and Germans during the Second

World War.

 

Jones said the increasingly international element of the terror threat made

evidence-gathering a longer and more difficult process. He argues that a

system is required where suspects can be arrested earlier than those

suspected of involvement in more traditional crime.

 

'We can't let the threat develop to the point we ordinarily would, because

the potential for a suicide bomber to take hundreds of lives is too awesome

to merely contemplate, and so we are into the evidence-gathering phase much

earlier,' he said.

 

'Then we are into judicially supervised detention. The fact is that these

cases do take much longer to investigate. The reach of an investigation can

be global. We are using a system designed to protect the rights of a suspect

of a routine criminal case in the United Kingdom and we are pushing it to

its limit.

 

'We should never have got involved in the 90-day debate. In hindsight, we

should have said that we needed an extraordinary mechanism to give us the

ability to investigate these complex cases under judicial supervision,' said

Jones.

 

Moves to extend the police's power to hold suspects will be dealt with in a

security bill in the autumn.

 

Jones also admitted Acpo had discussed problems of control orders, used as a

form of house arrest for suspects, with the government. 'Clearly it's an

idea that does need a refreshed view on it. But the solution of doing

nothing is not an option really,' he said of the orders, which have been

criticised after a number of those supposedly under their control absconded.

Jones's comments chime with those made by the man in charge of reviewing the

government's terrorism laws. Lord Carlile of Berriew said problems with the

immigration service and Passport Agency left terrorists free to move in and

out of Britain.

 

The Observer can also reveal that the criminal convictions of the leader of

the 21/7 bomb plot, Muktar Said Ibrahim, were not disclosed to the

immigration authorities when he applied to remain in the UK. In 1996

Ibrahim, originally from Eritrea, was given two prison sentences to run

concurrently, one for three years, the other for two, for handling stolen

goods, sexual assault and robbery. But the offences were not revealed to

officials when they granted him leave to remain in April 2000 - despite the

fact they were still running.