British Citizens Subject To Curfews, Tagging Under New Terror Powers

Associated Press | January 26, 2005

LONDON -- The British government Wednesday proposed sweeping new powers to control suspected terrorists, including electronic tagging, curfews and house arrest of people who have not been convicted of crimes.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the new "control orders" would apply to both foreigners and British nationals, and he promised to introduce legislation as soon as possible.

Eleven foreigners who have been held without charge as suspected terrorists for three years will not be released until the new powers were in place, he added.

"There remains a public emergency threatening the life of the nation," Clarke told the House of Commons. "The threat is real and I believe that the steps I am announcing today will enable us more effectively to meet that threat."

The opposition Conservative Party, however, said the proposals could backfire.

"Unless the process is clearly just, the home secretary could find himself confining one known terrorist only to recruit for our enemies 10 unknown terrorists," said David Davis, the Conservative spokesman on law and order.

Clarke said the government's preferred approach remained trying terrorist suspects in court. But he said in some cases prosecution was impossible "given the need to protect highly sensitive sources and techniques."

Instead, control orders could be imposed if there were "reasonable grounds" for suspecting terrorist activity -- a lower standard of proof than is required in trials.

Measures would include a ban on meeting certain people, restricting access to telecommunications such as the Internet, curfews and tagging. "At the top end, control orders would include a requirement to remain at their premises," Clarke said.

"Such orders would be preventive, designed to disrupt those seeking to carry out attacks whether here or elsewhere or who are planning or otherwise supporting such activities," he added.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman denied a suggestion that the measures were designed to deal with the four Britons who returned home Tuesday from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He said Clarke's announcement was a response to a ruling last month by Britain's highest court that it was illegal for the government to detain the 11 foreigners indefinitely without charge.

The men, from Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan, have been held under anti-terrorism legislation rushed through Parliament shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

The law allows the government to hold foreigners if there are "reasonable grounds to suspect" they are linked to terrorist groups, and if their lives would be endangered if they were deported to their home countries.

But the House of Lords ruled that this was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and said the law was discriminatory, as it only applied to foreigners. Clarke said the government accepted that ruling.

The government is under pressure to release the men from London's high security Belmarsh prison -- dubbed Britain's Guantanamo Bay.

Clarke said he believed the men "continue to pose a threat to national security" and that they would not be released until the control orders were in place.

He told the Commons he was exploring whether the men could be deported and was seeking assurances from their countries of origin that they would not face torture or the death sentence if they returned home.

Ian Macdonald, who resigned from an official panel of barristers representing those detainees, said a proposal for house arrest was "outrageous."

"If you're going to keep people in some sort of house arrest or in prison, you really have to take account of what I think is a fundamental principle, that people are presumed innocent," Macdonald said.

"If they're really dangerous, they should be charged under criminal law."

British officials propose new anti-terrorism powers

Seattle Times | January 27, 2005

British officials proposed sweeping new powers yesterday to control and monitor suspected terrorists without charge or trial, including house arrests, electronic tagging and curfews.

The measures were designed to address legal challenges to a post-Sept. 11, 2001, law under which the government has kept 11 foreign nationals imprisoned without charges for up to three years for allegedly posing a threat to national security. Home Secretary Charles Clarke, the Cabinet minister in charge of internal security, told the House of Commons that the 11 detainees, all of them Arab Muslims, would either be deported to their home countries or subjected to the new measures once a new bill passes Parliament.

The Law Lords, a panel of judges that acts as Britain's highest court of appeals, ruled the detention law violated the European Convention on Human Rights and was discriminatory because it applied only to foreign nationals, not to British citizens, and because it was not proportional to the potential security threat posed by the men.

Members of the two main opposition political parties cautiously welcomed the proposals. But David Davis, Conservative Party spokesman for internal security affairs, said he was concerned that the new measures would apply to British citizens and foreigners.

"Millions of British subjects have sacrificed their lives in defense of the nation's liberties, and it would be a sad paradox if we were to sacrifice the nation's liberty in defense of our own lives today," he told the Commons.

Rome

"Italian Unabomber" may have struck again
A mysterious bomber who has injured 20 people in a decade may have planted a small device that exploded yesterday in Italy's northern city of Treviso, police said.

There were no injuries from the explosion of a plastic candy container which went off as a group of middle-school students walked by, raising fears that the "Italian Unabomber" had struck again, police said.

Whoever is behind a dozen similar explosions in northeastern Italy since at least 1994 has been likened in the Italian media to the U.S. Unabomber who sent dozens of bombs through the U.S. mail for nearly 20 years.

Other blasts believed linked to the same man were a 2003 explosion of a booby-trapped pen that injured a child's hand and eye during a family picnic in the Treviso area; an exploding soap-bubble jar that injured a 5-year-old boy in 2002; and a jar of a popular brand of hazelnut sandwich spread that went off when a woman opened it, though she escaped injury.

Moscow

Russia may seek arrest of Ukraine PM
Ukraine's acting Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko faces criminal charges in Russia, but it is up to a court to decide whether to press forward with an arrest warrant, Russia's chief prosecutor said yesterday.

A Russian military court issued an arrest warrant for Tymoshenko last September while she was involved in helping President Viktor Yushchenko prepare for an election battle against Moscow-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.

Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said Russian courts would decide whether to arrest her if she visits, referring to charges of bribery involving Russian military officials. Tymoshenko has denied charges of bribing Russian military officials when she headed the Ukrainian electric power system. She says the charges were politically motivated by enemies.

Beijing

Court spares life of Tibetan monk
A Chinese court yesterday spared the life of a Tibetan monk convicted in a series of fatal bombings, commuting his death sentence to life in prison, the government said.

Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, 54, was convicted in December 2002 and given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, which expired yesterday. The monk and an aide, Lobsang Dhondup, 28, were convicted in 2003 of seeking independence for Tibet. They were charged in connection with a series of bombings in 2001-02 that killed one person in Sichuan, which abuts Tibet and has a large ethnic Tibetan population.

The monk's conviction prompted protests by activists who said he was targeted because of his status as a community leader.