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Britain

Separate jails for foreigners in UK

2007-10-24

London: Two prisons have been converted to house only foreign prisoners in an attempt to speed up the deportation process once they complete their sentence, the government said on Wednesday. It follows the sacking of former Home Secretary Charles Clarke last year after it emerged 1,000 foreign prisoners had been freed without being considered for deportation. Justice Minister David Hanson said more foreigners may be held separately if the experiment at Bullwood Hall in Essex and Canterbury Prison in Kent is a success. "In the two prisons ... we have specialist immigration officers who are helping to ensure that we prepare during the sentence for early deportation," he told BBC radio. The number of foreign inmates has doubled in the last 10 years to about 11,000, or one in seven of all prisoners in England and Wales, the government says. Extra cells are being built to ease overcrowding after the prison population reached a record high of more than 81,000 earlier this year. Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said that separating foreign inmates could help them to receive specialist help. Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert said more foreign prisoners should be sent back to their home country. "Why have these foreign national prisoners not been deported? That is what the Prime Minister promised he would do," he told Sky News.

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Britain

Mi5 found bomb factory, bugged suspects

2006-08-13

British intelligence service agents secretly infiltrated a bomb factory and found liquid explosives and detonators weeks before they foiled the plot to blow up America-bound passenger jets flying from UK airports, media reported on Sunday. Covert raids on homes of key terror suspects were also made to plant bugs and gather crucial evidence against them, The Mail on Sunday claimed. The carefully planned 'sneak and peek' operation involved members of the SAS, or Special Air Service and other surveillance specialists of Mi5. It allowed the Security Service to eavesdrop on the suspected terrorists in the weeks before they were arrested. The high-risk strategy which allowed the terror plot to almost reach fruition - potentially putting civilian lives at risk - is understood to have been discussed with Prime Minister Tony Blair and by the government's crisis management Cobra Committee, the report said. A government source told the tabloid that this was just one of a dozen terror plots being investigated by Mi5. But the audacious surveillance exercise - approved by the Home Secretary - allowed Mi5 teams to build up a detailed picture of the group's planning, contacts and, crucially, when they intended to strike. During months of careful work, the specialists are understood to have managed to get inside the gang's bomb-making factory - giving final confirmation that the plotters were indeed planning mass murder. Hours of tape recordings, photographs and video are now likely to be used as evidence against the men if they are charged for their part in the alleged plot. Tiny eavesdropping devices picked up conversations involving various members of the suspected terrorist gang as they put the finishing touches to their plans to blow up a series of commercial flights over the Atlantic. The Security Service has a licence to 'bug and burgle' but only with the approval of the Home Secretary in order that any evidence obtained can later be used in court. According to the report, over several months, former Home Secretary Charles Clarke and, more recently, John Reid were given detailed updates on the progress of the investigation to enable them to sign warrants for sophisticated intrusive surveillance against the terrorists. As Mi5 reveals on its website: "The Services does use intrusive investigative methods, such as eavesdropping in a target's home and vehicle. "However, our use of such methods is subject to a strict control and oversight regime. "To install an eavesdropping device in a target's home we need to apply to the Secretary of State for a warrant under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) to authorise the intrusion on the privacy of the target."

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Britain

Jack Straw gets the boot

2006-05-05

Spring cleaning at 10 Downing... Prime Minister Tony Blair fired his law and order chief and chose a new foreign secretary on Friday, trying to restore public support in his troubled government after his Labour Party took a pounding in local elections. Home Secretary Charles Clarke, embroiled in a politically damaging furore over the failure to deport foreign criminals, confirmed that Blair had removed him from office. Blair removed Jack Straw as foreign secretary, replacing him with Margaret Beckett, who had headed the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Blair's office said Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who admitted an affair with a secretary, will keep his title. News reports said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had been transferred to a new position.

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Britain

UK official line on 7/7

2006-04-09

So ... no need to change UK policy on Londonistan. Color me skeptical here. The official inquiry into the 7 July London bombings will say the attack was planned on a shoestring budget from information on the internet, that there was no 'fifth-bomber' and no direct support from al-Qaeda, although two of the bombers had visited Pakistan. The first forensic account of the atrocity that claimed the lives of 52 people, which will be published in the next few weeks, will say that attacks were the product of a 'simple and inexpensive' plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom. Far from being the work of an international terror network, as originally suspected, the attack was carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet. Their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds, according to the first completed draft of the government's definitive report into the blasts. The Home Office account, compiled by a senior civil servant at the behest of Home Secretary Charles Clarke, also discounts the existence of a fifth bomber. After the bombings, police found an unused rucksack of explosives in the bombers' abandoned car at Luton station, which led to a manhunt for a missing suspect. Similarly, it found nothing to support the theory that an al-Qaeda fixer, presumed to be from Pakistan, was instrumental in planning the attacks. A Whitehall source said: 'The London attacks were a modest, simple affair by four seemingly normal men using the internet.' Confirmation of the nature of the attacks will raise fresh concerns over the vulnerability of Britain to an attack by small, unsophisticated groups. A fortnight after 7 July, an unconnected group of four tried to duplicate the attack, but their devices failed to detonate. However, the findings will draw criticism for failing to address concerns as to why no action was taken against the bombers despite the fact that one of them, Mohammed Siddique Khan, was identified by intelligence officers months before the attack. A report into the attack by the Commons intelligence and security committee, which could be published alongside the official narrative, will question why MI5 called off surveillance of the ringleader of the 7 July bombings. Patrick Mercer, shadow homeland security spokesman, said the official narrative's findings would only lead to calls for an independent inquiry to answer further questions surrounding 7 July. He said: 'A series of reports such as this narrative simply does not answer questions such as the reduced terror alert before the attack, the apparent involvement of al-Qaeda and links to earlier or later terrorist plots.' The official Home Office report into the attacks does, however, decide that the four suicide bombers - Siddique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay - were partly inspired by Khan's trips to Pakistan, though the meeting between the four men and known militants in Pakistan is seen as ideological, rather than fact-finding. A videotape of Mohammed Siddique Khan released after the attacks also featured footage of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Home Office believes the tape was edited after the suicide attacks and dismisses it as evidence of al-Qaeda's involvement in the attack. Khan is confirmed as ringleader of the attacks, though the Yorkshire-born bomber's apparent links to other suspected terrorists are not discussed for legal reasons. The report also investigates the psychological make-up and behaviour of the four bombers during the run-up to the attack. Using intelligence compiled in the nine months since, the account paints a portrait of four British men who in effect led double lives. It exposes how the quartet adopted an extreme interpretation of Islam, juxtaposed with a willingness to enjoy a 'western' lifestyle - in particular Jermaine Lindsay, the bomber from Berkshire. According to the report, the attacks were largely motivated by concerns over foreign policy and the perception that it was deliberately anti-Muslim, although the four men were also driven by the promise of immortality.

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Down Under

Hicks admitted training with Richard Reid

2006-03-19

AUSTRALIAN terror suspect David Hicks was secretly interrogated in Guantanamo Bay by British intelligence agency MI5 and admitted to training with several terrorists including the infamous "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, according to new claims from the Blair Government. In an extraordinary twist to the Hicks saga, the British Government is using the contents of MI5's secret 2003 interview to deny the Australian detainee his application for a British passport. According to lawyers representing the Home Office, Hicks admitted during the interview to extensive terrorist training in Kashmir and Afghanistan, and also that he had met the late Abu Hafs, an al-Qaeda kingpin who was anointed by Osama bin Laden as his successor just before his violent death in 2001. The revelations emerged in Britain's High Court on Friday, as Home Secretary Charles Clarke fought an appeal against last year's ruling that he should grant Hicks British citizenship immediately, on the basis that the detainee's mother was born in Britain. Hicks' father, Terry, yesterday fought back on his son's behalf against the allegations, raising the spectre of torture, and said his son should be subject to all the protection afforded to other detainees who were British citizens. He is planning to personally ask Tony Blair for help with his son's plight when the British Prime Minister arrives in Australia next weekend. "He's not in a real good way," he said of his son. "The quicker we get him back here, the better off David will be." In London, counsel for the British Government told the High Court that the Government had sent a letter to Hicks' lawyers setting out why Mr Clarke is unwilling to make Hicks a British citizen. The Home Secretary, according to the letter, dated December last year and seen by The Sunday Age, intends to "rely on admissions made by Mr Hicks in an interview with the Security Service (known more generally as MI5) on 26 April, 2003 in Guantanamo Bay". "In particular, Mr Hicks admitted the following: attending a Lashkar Tayyaba (sic) training camp in Kashmir in around 2000 . . . attending the Al Farooq system of camps in Afghanistan in around 2001 . . . (and) receiving training in weapons and guerilla warfare." Hicks also admitted, according to the letter, "meeting and training with a number of UK nationals known to be Islamic extremists including Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, Richard Reid and Sajid Badat". Reid, the British-born "shoe bomber" who unsuccessfully attempted to blow up his sneakers on a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001, is now serving a life sentence in the US. Badat, his accomplice, was sentenced last year to 13 years in a British prison. Abbasi and Mubanga, however, are at liberty in Britain, having been released from Guantanamo Bay in January 2005. The British Government secured the release of all British citizens from the prison through a deal with the US Government, and neither Mr Abbasi nor Mr Mubanga have subsequently been charged with any offence. An irritated Michael Fordham, barrister for David Hicks, told the court it was "inconsistent" for Mr Clarke to condemn Hicks for his association with the likes of Mubanga and Abbasi. "They were in Guantanamo! They were released! They have been arrested and interviewed in this country, and no charges were laid!" he protested. Terry Hicks said the British Government was treating his son like a "political football". "If the law says he is eligible for British citizenship, well that's it," he said. "The nine Brits who were released from Guantanamo Bay probably had the same alliances, and some of the stuff that has come out about David could possibly be hearsay."

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Britain

Hicks linked to shoe bomber

2006-03-19

Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks has admitted to British intelligence agents that he trained with terrorists including "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, UK authorities said. The Guantanamo Bay detainee also is said to have told MI5 agents who interrogated him in 2003 that he received extensive training at camps in Kashmir and Afghanistan and met the late Abu Hafs, an al-Qaeda kingpin who prior to his death in 2001 was named as the successor to Osama bin Laden. The Sun-Herald today said the admissions were being used by the British Government in its appeal against a High Court ruling last December requiring that Hicks be given British citizenship because his mother was born and raised in England. The paper cited a letter to Hicks' lawyers last December setting out why Home Secretary Charles Clarke was unwilling to grant Hicks citizenship and stating he intended to "rely on admissions made by Mr Hicks in an interview with the Security Service (MI5) on 26 April, 2003, in Guantanamo Bay." "In particular, Mr Hicks admitted ... attending a (Lashkar-e-Toiba) training camp in Kashmir in around 2000 ... attending the Al Farooq system of camps in Afghanistan in around 2001 ... (and) receiving training in weapons and guerrilla warfare," the letter added. The letter said Hicks also had admitted "training with a number of UK nationals known to be Islamic extremists" including Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" now serving a life sentence for trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with a bomb concealed in his shoe in 2001. The British Government has since secured the release of all British citizens held at Guantanamo Bay in a deal with US authorities. Hicks had sought British citizenship in the expectation it would also help secure his release from Guantanamo Bay. He has been in US custody at the detention centre in Cuba since he was captured allegedly fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US. The British Government appeal was argued yesterday before Justices Pill, Rix and Hooper in the Court of Appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice. A judgment was expected early next month, although it was open for both sides to appeal the verdict further to the House of Lords. The Adelaide-born former chicken processor and one-time jackaroo is facing trial on terrorism-related charges before a US military commission. His father, Terry Hicks, who retraced his steps through Pakistan and Afghanistan for a television documentary two years ago admitted David had been with the Taliban but has always denied that he was a terrorist. Today he said his son was struggling to stay positive in the wake of the appeal, but added Britain would be responsible for retrieving David from Guantanamo Bay if the Government appeal fails. "If David wins the appeal then it falls on the British Government to get him back," he said.

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Africa Subsaharan

Uganda may try former Gitmo suspect

2006-03-09

The Ugandan government is looking into whether Mr Jamal Kiyemba, 25, an Al Qaeda suspect deported from the US run Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba, can be tried in Uganda. Kiyemba, who desparately claims to be said he is British, was deported nearly a month ago after Britain rejected him citizenship. The State Minister for Defence, Ms Ruth Nankabirwa, told Daily Monitor yesterday that the government was looking into whether the Uganda law could apply on him. "We are making inquiries to see whether there is sufficient evidence to have him prosecuted, freed or even benefiting from amnesty," Nankabirwa said. Kiyemba is held by the Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force in an unknown location. He was freed without warning two weeks ago as international pressure mounted on America to close the detention camp after a highly critical UN report on the treatment of prisoners there was released. The Americans transferred Kiyemba to Uganda after the British Government refused to help him. "We don't want him. He's ucky!" The Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Julius Onen, defended the transfer saying Kiyemba is a Ugandan. "He had to be transferred here because he is a citizen," Onen said. The Justice ministers were unavailable to comment on the legal process. "Go away." Human Rights campaigners in the UK are uncertain of Kiyemba's safety in Uganda and have called for his immediate return. Safety didn't seem to be his biggest concern when he was tramping around in Pak-Land. Having grown up with his family in the UK, Kiyemba feels more British than Ugandan, and had asked the UK government to help him return to his family. "Please don't let them kill me!" Despite being visited by MI5 (British secret service) agents in June 2002, who told Jamal that they consider him British and that he could return to the UK, the British government refused to intervene and on February 9, 2006 the Americans transferred Jamal to Uganda. On the same day Home Secretary Charles Clarke issued an order indefinitely banning Kiyemba from entering the UK. "Get out and don't bother coming back!" Kiyemba was seized by the Pakistani military whilst driving with friends on March 19, 2002. He was interrogated by the Pakistanis and allegedly spent three weeks in an underground hole where US agents occasionally interrogated him. "Hi Jamal, how's going down there?" He was then handed over to the Americans and taken to an airfield outside Peshwar, then to Bagram Airforce Base and finally to Guantanamo Bay. Kiyemba claims the Americans forced him to confess to terrorist activities, and that MI5 interrogated him repeatedly, about British terror suspects and the jailed clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. "They made me, guys, honest, I didn't rat youse out willingly!" He is the second Ugandan to have been jailed in Guantanamo Bay after Abas Feroz, who was released early last year.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan: Muslims must work with West to promote true Islam

2006-02-21

Jordan's King Abdullah II appealed Tuesday for cooperation between the Muslim world and the international community to promote the true image of Islam as a religion which rejects extremism and terrorism. "True Islam is a religion of moderation and forgiveness," the king told visiting British Home Secretary Charles Clarke, Jordan's state-run Petra news agency reported. I'll bet he even said that with a straight face. They practice in front of a mirror, y'know. The monarch insisted "on cooperation between the Muslim world and the international community to promote the principles of Islam which call for the rejection of extremism and terrorism," Petra said. Tell it to the mullah, king. We've heard it all before. We're watching the hands, not the lips... King Abdullah II briefed Clarke on the "Amman Message" which he launched in November 2004 in a bid to encourage fellow Muslims to embrace tolerance. Yeah. That's been selling like hotcakes. The minister of religious affairs, Abdel-Fattah Saleh informed Clarke of plans to send Muslim clerics to Britain to spread the "Amman Message." I'd say Britain has more than enough Muslim clerics. As a matter of fact, it'd be better off getting rid of most of them, rather than importing more... "Islam respects all human beings, regardless of their beliefs and religions, and it respects as well people's opinions as long as they do not undermine the freedom and beliefs of others," Petra quoted Saleh as saying. In other words, no competition from other religions; Islam's the only one that's allowed to compete. Tell 'em about the apostasy laws, Abdel-Fatty.

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Britain

Informant Flagged London Bomber

2006-02-08

NEW YORK - A terror informant arrested in 2004 identified one of the London transit system suicide bombers as a possible threat, according to U.S. officials who said the tip was too vague to foil last year's deadly attack. The FBI passed on the warning about Mohammed Sidique Khan to British authorities before the July 7 bombings, two U.S. law enforcement officials based in New York said Tuesday. The informant, Mohammed Junaid Babar, identified Khan as a potential terrorist, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is based in Britain. However, they said, Babar offered no specific information about a plot targeting the transit system. Khan and fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer were briefly put under surveillance by Britain's MI5 security agency in 2004, but the operation was halted when security services decided the men did not pose any immediate threat. They were among four men who later blew up three subways and a double-decker bus, killing 52 commuters and themselves. Khan, a 30-year-old Briton of Pakistani descent, reportedly had traveled to Pakistan. In a videotape that surfaced after the bombings, he said he was inspired by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Babar, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, has pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in federal court in Manhattan. In his plea agreement, he described traveling to the Pakistani province of Waziristan to supply cash and military equipment to al-Qaida and providing members of the Pakistani terror cell in London with material for fertilizer bombs. A scheme to blow up pubs, restaurants and train stations was foiled in March 2004, when British authorities arrested several suspects and seized 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate from a storage locker in London. Babar, who remains in custody in New York, is due in Britain later this month to give prosecution evidence at the trial of seven men charged in the plot. Britain's Home Office and London's Metropolitan Police have refused to comment on Babar's claims about intelligence related to Khan, citing government policy not to discuss issues of security or intelligence. The British government is to publish at least part of a review of intelligence on the July 7 bombings after Home Secretary Charles Clarke called for a narrative of events leading to the bombings.

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Britain

Man apologises for posing as suicide bomber in UK

2006-02-06

A man who dressed as a suicide bomber during a protest about cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad has apologised for his behaviour. Omar Khayam, 22, from Bedford, "wholeheartedly" apologised to the families of the 7 July bombings. He likened his own "insensitive" behaviour to the "provocative and controversial" cartoon publication. Downing Street has said the behaviour of some Muslim protesters in London was "completely unacceptable". No protesters at the demonstration on Friday and Saturday outside the Danish embassy - over cartoons first printed in a Danish newspaper - were arrested. But Scotland Yard has said a special squad is investigating the protests and has promised a "swift" inquiry. Mr Khayam read out his apology outside his Bedford home. "I found the pictures deeply offensive as a Muslim and I felt the Danish newspaper had been provocative and controversial, deeply offensive and insensitive. Just because we have the right of free speech and a free media, it does not mean we may say and do as we please and not take into account the effect it will have on others. But by me dressing the way I did, I did just that, exactly the same as the Danish newspaper, if not worse." He said his method of protest had offended many people, especially the families of the July bombing victims. "This was not my intention. What happened in July was a tragedy and un-Islamic. I do not condone these murderous acts, do not support terrorism or extremism and would like to apologise unreservedly and wholeheartedly to the families of the victims." He added: "I understand it was wrong, unjustified and insensitive of me to protest in this way." Asif Nadim, from a Bedford mosque, said the Muslim community distanced itself from Mr Khayam's actions and supported his apology. "Looking at this from an Islamic point of view, this was totally un-Islamic. We distance ourselves from the act that he has actually caused and the pain that he has caused for the families of the victims of the London bombings." He said Mr Khayam was "very, very ashamed" of his actions and hoped that it would be the end of the matter. Violent demonstrations Home Secretary Charles Clarke said any decisions on arrest and prosecution were "properly matters for the police and prosecution authorities". He said that the reaction to the cartoons across Britain had "in general been respectful and restrained". Protests have continued throughout the world, with five people being killed in Afghanistan, and a boy killed in Somalia when demonstrations turned violent. Rallies have also taken place in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Iran and Gaza, following attacks on Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon over the weekend. The cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper last year and republished in Europe last week

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Britain

Court: Aswat Can Be Extradited

2006-01-06

A British court ruled Thursday that a suspected al-Qaida member can be extradited to the United States to stand trial for allegedly plotting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon. The ruling came after the U.S. government reassured the court that the British defendant, Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, would be tried at a U.S. federal court, not a military tribunal, and that he would not be designated an "enemy combatant." The American government has used that label to detain suspected terrorists at military detention centers such as Guantanamo Bay. "A trial could be properly and fairly conducted without a breach of the defendant's ... rights," Judge Timothy Workman said in his ruling at Bow Street magistrates court in London. British Home Secretary Charles Clarke now has up to two months to approve the extradition. The defense had argued that Aswat should not be extradited to the United States because he would face an "overwhelming risk" of being held in solitary confinement without trial — cut off from his friends, family and attorneys. Aswat's lawyer, Paul Bowen, immediately appealed. Aswat was arrested in Lusaka, Zambia, on July 20 in connection with the July 7 bombings in London, in which four suicide bombers killed 52 transit passengers.

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Europe

Ramda Extradited to France

2005-12-02

PARIS (AP) - An Algerian man suspected of involvement in a bomb attack on the Paris subway a decade ago was extradited from Britain to France on Thursday, British and French officials said. Rachid Ramda, who spent 10 years in jail in Britain, allegedly provided funds for the bombers of the July 1995 attack, which killed eight people and injured 87 on the Paris Metro system. "Justice is finally going to be done," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin who is a man said in an interview with France-3 television, adding that he hoped a trial would take place "very quickly." Ramda arrived in Paris on Thursday evening and was to be presented before Paris prosecutors office in connection with an international arrest warrant, the French Justice Ministry said. The conclusion to Britain's longest-running extradition case follows a ruling last month. Two High Court judges rejected Ramda's appeal against extradition, ruling that Home Secretary Charles Clarke had acted legally earlier this year in ordering his extradition. Ramda was arrested in Britain in 1995 as a suspect in the bombing, which was widely attributed to Algeria's militant Armed Islamic Group. Supporters of a campaign to block extradition alleged that he could eventually be deported from France to Algeria, and claimed he could face execution there. The High Court judges said there was "no real risk" Ramda would be ill-treated in French custody or deported to Algeria. That's a shame; might have been a useful lever.

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