Originally Posted by DeltaDog

Much as I'd quite happily watch the cunt torn apart by hungry rats, the laws protecting him are the same ones that would protect you or I or any other member of this site from a similar fate.

You think? As far as the Human Rights Act is concerned, all men are not created equal.

Our mate Abu has an absolute right to life, guaranteed by the HRA.

Become a patient in a NHS hospital and you no longer have a right to life. The NHS can and will leave you to die if your life is deemed to be not worth the cost of saving. The precedent was set when a hospital refused to fund the drugs required to save a six year old leukaemia patient. The case went all the way to the House of Lords and they ruled in favour of the hospital by deciding that the HRA did not apply.

So, in summary:-

Abu Qatada -> HRA applies
Mustaf Jama (murdered PC Sharon Beshenivsky) -> HRA applies
Child with leukaemia -> HRA does not apply
My missus (refused a hospital bed when she had cancer) -> HRA does not apply

If I was a raging cynic, I might think that the HRA only applies when it causes lefties to get a semi when applying it.

And another thing. The French have no problem deporting anybody they want. There is, if I understand correctly, a "national interest" clause in the convention that allows deportation to unpleasant places. Why aren't we using that?

All three threads about this merged. Apologies for the disjointed results but I'm buggered if I'm keeping an eye on separate threads.

And lay off 'Fantasy Punishments for Bloke Charged With Nothing 2012'. It's remarkably tedious.

I am a bit bone generally but what is the kind of punishment that Strasbourgh can dish out? What can theyactually do?

Originally Posted by Iolis

The fact remains that despite having at its disposal the most draconian anti-terror legislation than is possessed by any Western Democracy, the Government have failed to produce a scintilla of evidence sufficient to put before a judge to secure a conviction of Qatada under a single provision of the Terrorism Act 2000 (as amended).

That is (supposedly) not true. Intercept evidence remains inadmissible and the government simply refuses to allow evidence obtained through the Security Services to be placed before open court, since supposedly this would expose the methods by which that evidence was adduced and thus allow onlooking terrorists to better evade further scrutiny.

Also there is a rather authoritarian legal framework within the United States for the federal investigation of supposed terrorists threats, all of which is (like its equivalent in the United Kingdom) extra-judicial.

Originally Posted by donmac

If it's only Daily Mail readers who are infuriated, AQ doesn't really have much to worry about does he?

Daily Mail readers are always infuriated about something - especially if foreigners are involved.

That the government feels that intercept evidence is inadmissible in open court is the very reason for the imposition of closed evidence hearings under which the prosecution case in the form of intercept evidence is not disclosed to the accused or his solicitor, but to a security-cleared special advocate who is not allowed to disclose it to the defendant. Other countries in the EU allow intercept evidence. We do not, and the justification for not doing so is risible in the extreme. This aspect more than any other sets our counter-terrorism laws apart from that practiced elsewhere in other countries that have rather better functioning democracies than that which passes for one in this country!

It is this Kafkaesque exercise that makes the current law rather more draconian than elsewhere. A fortiori since the current system envisages at least some contact between the special advocate and his client, albeit 'one way. Even this limited protection (such as it is) was abrogated in the case of 'CC' who was the subject of close proceedings while he was abroad and had no possibility of any one-way input into any closed evidence hearing. In his case, the security services arranged for the foreign police in a rather nasty country to arrest him there, question him under conditions which they knew he would be ill treated, transmit the record of interview to the UK. They then arranged to have him deported to the UK on the basis of the control order and then passed a list of 180 questions to the border agency with instructions to use the powers available to them under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Act in order to establish whether or not the man in question was a terrorist, together with instructions not to respond to any inquiry by the accused as to the involvement of the UK security services in his arrest by the Foreign Police. Of course, if the border agency formed the view that the accused was, indeed a 'terrorist' then the evidence would be used not only to justify the continuance of the control order but to secure a prosecution based upon questions put to him from intelligence gained very likely under torture from the foreign police who arrested him in the first place under as requested by the UK. What let the UK authorities down was the ruling by Collins J that the purpose of schedule 7 was to determine whether an individual was a terrorist which was something that the intelligence services had already determined he was at the time the control order was made by the Secretary of State.

In theory, all it takes to succeed the next time around is for the security services not to make the mistake of obtaining a control order at home before they request the police in rather dodgy countries to arrest and question a British national on holiday to obtain information from him using methods which would be thrown out of court as inadmissible if he were to be questioned under similar conditions in a British Police station.

Thus, while the UK government have misused the immigration legislation to justify the continued incarceration of Qatada for 6 years after indefinite detention was ruled unlawful by the House of Lords in 'Re A' and told the world that it was justified pending deportation which was frustrated because Qatada may be subject to an unfair trial in Jordan using evidence that may have been obtained by torture. It was quite happy in the case of 'CC' to use the foreign police to arrest a British National abroad where there was a strong likelihood he would be tortured, and then to use that evidence to construct a case against him to secure a conviction in a UK court. It is this rank hypocrisy and double standard that makes a complete mockery of the law.

Theresa May stood up in Parliament today and referred to Qatada as a 'terrorist'. He has never been convicted of any terrorist offence in this country. If he was brought before a court and charged with any offence under the Terrorism Act 2000, or with any criminal offence such as 'soliciting murder', it is not because the evidence against him is based on any 'closed intercepts'. Rather, it is likely that it would emerge in open court that when he arrived here with his family and obtained refugee status after escaping from Jordan, he was assessed by the intelligence services as posing no security threat at all. And of course, the one thing we must not do at all is to embarrass the government by making the intelligence services look stupid because it reflects directly on the Prime Minister who is head of both branches of it!

Theresa May has everything to gain politically by painting Qatada as the Devil Incarnate. He is her 'ace in the hole' in her ongoing attempt to undermine and discredit both the European judges as well as to seek rather more extended powers than those she already has. It suits her agenda and that of the government!

I personally couldn't give a toss about Qatada or his ideology, but I do care very much about the way in which corrupt officials and politicians in this country subvert our law, lie to the public and engage in the same sort of activity in private that they condemn in public. May is a British politician and you do not find any other species of human being more slippery and dangerous than those!

Originally Posted by Pyianno

Well, seeking asylum from a country and then inciting terrorism against the citizens who have granted you asylum is rather hypocritical. However, that is not a license to lock people up indefinitely without trial.

No, but it fucking should be.

Originally Posted by Pyianno

Well, seeking asylum from a country and then inciting terrorism against the citizens who have granted you asylum is rather hypocritical. However, that is not a license to lock people up indefinitely without trial.

While there is no doubt that one should not lock up even people who are dangerous indefinitely, but I am sure there are enough reasons why a person can be kept off the streets on other offences so that they are not allowed to endanger the lives of tax paying citizens if Britain or use the British goodness to plan, in relative peace and tranquillity without the fear of arrest, terrorist acts on other countries

Can the said individual not be deported if there are good reasons within the law to deport the person to his native land, if the country of his origin gives the tacit understanding that there will be no torture and that he will be tried fairly?

Can that not be done, rather than allowing a dangerous man, openly avowing and supporting jihad, freely roam the streets and be a danger to the citizens of Britain and even losing the goodwill of the people of other countries, where this said dangerous man organises terrorism while sitting in peace and misusing the goodwill of Britain's laws?

Apologies if this has already been done, but what would happen to Uk/ UK govenment if, for instance, quatada was removed from prison and put on a plane to Amman or Aquaba, with a couple of big lads to carry his bags? What possible sanction could be carried out against the UK and how could that possibly make things worse for you, me and every other bloke/lass in the street? I know not, 'cos I am just a soldier sans university education.
GOS

Originally Posted by Rayc

While there is no doubt that one should not lock up even people who are dangerous indefinitely, but I am sure there are enough reasons why a person can be kept off the streets on other offences so that they are not allowed to endanger the lives of tax paying citizens if Britain or use the British goodness to plan, in relative peace and tranquillity without the fear of arrest, terrorist acts on other countries

Can the said individual not be deported if there are good reasons within the law to deport the person to his native land, if the country of his origin gives the tacit understanding that there will be no torture and that he will be tried fairly?

Can that not be done, rather than allowing a dangerous man, openly avowing and supporting jihad, freely roam the streets and be a danger to the citizens of Britain and even losing the goodwill of the people of other countries, where this said dangerous man organises terrorism while sitting in peace and misusing the goodwill of Britain's laws?

Thought you had gone,,,,However you are still spouting tripe and rotten tripe at that.Man up and aknowledge that your views are twisted,one eyed and Hypocritical ...