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1. If there is a "reasonable suspicion that the appellant is an international terrorist" then why hasn’t he been charged with anything? What evidence is there for this suspicion and why hasn’t it been used in a court of law?

   Its about time that all of these ‘terrorist supects’ where either charged with a crime or released immediately. I may be old fashioned but I still believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty’. If the Government won’t even charge these people then either they do not have enough evidence to prove guilt or these people haven’t even committed a crime. Therefore the Government is committing a crime by depriving them of their liberty.

   Comment by Uncarved Block — 23 Apr 2004 on 1:55 pm | Link

2. Ridiculous. The key term is "suspicion". By virtue of the nature of terrorist activity, which is clandestine and difficult to track using pre-September 11 laws, law enforcement can have the personal details of an individual whom they know to be involved in terrorism but whom they cannot charge because the existing court laws mean that their evidence would be thrown out. Which is precisely what has happened in Germany during the trial of the only man convicted for involvement in the September 11 attacks.

   It’s all very well to talk about cosy societal norms like "innocent until proven guilty" (and incidentally I don’t disagree with that, before anyone suggests that I do!), but in the modern geopolitical environment doesn’t a trade-off between civil liberties and harsher laws seem appropriate? Yes, it’s unfortunate, but I’d sooner have fourteen people being kept under watch without trial (yet) than them being free to plot attacks on the Tube.

   Incidentally, it’s worth noting that the provisions which keep such terrorists detained is subject to a sunset clause and an annual renewal order which by no means went through on the nod from the House of Lords this year.

   Comment by Rob — 23 Apr 2004 on 4:12 pm | Link

3. The key term is suspicion (i.e. ‘belief without sure proof’). If they claim that they know the person is involved in terrorism then that means that they have proof. If they do not have proof then they only believe that the person is involved in terrorism and this belief is not founded on evidence. Under your logic I could suspect you of being a terrorist, lock you up and you would have no right to complain. How would you prove that you are not a terrorist?

   Innocent until proven guilty is not a ‘cosy societal norm’, it is a basic principle of justice. I don’t understand your ‘trade-off between civil liberties and harsher laws’. If we do not fight to defend civil liberties, what are we fighting for? I would much rather have fourteen people free to live in a liberal democratic society than see them imprisoned. If they do plot to attack the tube then they can be arrested and charged and tried in the same way that anyone would be on any other crime.

   Incidentally, evidence from security services is no different from any other sort of evidence. The reason judges tend to throw it out is because it is often no better than gossip and wild conjecture.

   Comment by Uncarved Block — 23 Apr 2004 on 4:57 pm | Link

4. it’s a bit different if the security services say it to if some guy in the pub says it. hey, i’m all for civil liberties, what else should the "war on terror" be about, but these liberties include the right not to be blown up or for other people to be blown up, and if these men just-so-happen to be planning an attack, carried it out while on bail and killed, say, 200 people, i think that would anger people more than if some innocent men was detained for a while. i know that we live in a liberal democratic society, i thank god every day for it, but what’s the point of that if it’s being constantly threatened?

   Comment by me — 23 Apr 2004 on 8:58 pm | Link

5. I’m all for specific changes. If you’d care to point out the facts on this, you’d see that what we need isn’t more draconian legislation.

   The moroccan man accused of helping the hijackers was acquitted, yes; the chief judge complained from the bench that the trial had been seriously undermined by a U.S> failure to allow access to intelligence files and al-Qaeda members held in secret custody.

   Klaus Ruehle, chief of the panel of judges, said that "one of the main problems in this trial was that it was not possible to get files from intelligence services". Addressing Mzoudi, he said, "You are acquitted not because the court is convinced of your innocence, but because the evidence was not enough to convict you."

   Describe, exactly, how this should mean that we should all suffer loss of civil liberties: What the judge is saying is that if they had been given access to the evidence the governments claimed to have, they would have been able to consider a different verdict.

   No law in the land should allow a judge to convict a criminal without evidence of a conviction; accordingly, no police force meant to uphold those laws should be able to request and get a conviction without providing that evidence.

   If you’ve got a problem with the verdict in that case, your problem, like theirs, had nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with U.S. political interest in providing intelligence information they claimed to posess on the individual to the courts for prosecution; the effects of not providing this should have been, and are for most, painfully obvious.

   Comment by Gregory Block — 26 Apr 2004 on 1:55 pm | Link

6. Another way of looking at it; once again, if the government can convince the general public of how imminent danger we are all in, then people ARE going to come round to Blunketts way of thinking; I was reading the "Your Say" page on the BBC website and the amount of people who are already convinced we are in imminent danger is amazing. Therefore, by not providing access to the relevant "evidence", the government has another ideal opportunity to make sure the "war on terror" stays in the forefront of the public consciousness. I’m not suggesting that the government deliberately arranged all this; what I AM suggesting however is that the government knew what the reaction would be to this mans release, and they also knew that they were not going to show all the "evidence" they supposedly hold. So deliberately arranged or conveniently occurred, take your pick; either way, it plays into the governments hands and it strikes me already that voices of reason are losing out to the blatant alarmist propoganda the government is putting out.

   As Gregory says, we don’t need new legislation. All we need is some common sense – that’s the very opposite of what David Himmler, sorry Blunkett, often displays. If he is so enraged by the verdict, given that there seems to be no evidence that is ever going to be used in a trial, one has to ask the question; why didn’t the government see this coming? Or maybe they did and the rest of the story is as I laid out above… Take your pick; one thing is sure – a large proportion of the sheeple seem to have been already convinced by the government, to the extent that a large slice seem to be uncaring about the loss of civil liberties as long as they are made safe by the introduction of ID cards. Someone, help us all!!!

   Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 26 Apr 2004 on 4:26 pm | Link

7. No sense in shooting your load early – the best time to have the public discussion is with the support of the media and lots of scrutiny; at that time, it’ll be in everyone’s best interests to go through that document, word by word, and spell out the implications.

   If people are still comfortable with it then… well, that’s the great thing about Democracy. The people get what they deserve, good and hard.

   Comment by Gregory Block — 27 Apr 2004 on 12:54 am | Link

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