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| Britain |
| British bid to toughen terror laws |
| 2004-02-01 |
| BRITAIN wanted to toughen its anti-terrorist legislation to prevent suicide attacks, with alleged British terrorists facing sentencing on the basis of "probable" guilt, Home Secretary David Blunkett said today. He said the aim was to fuse the 2000 anti-terrorist law with the very controversial 2001 law, adopted after the September 11 attacks in the United States, allowing unlimited detention without trial of foreigners suspected of terrorist activities. The Labour Government hopes to see the new measures adopted before the next elections, which must be held by 2006, Blunkett said in an interview with the domestic Press Association news agency to mark his visit to India and Pakistan. Blunkett’s proposal, which would be the object of a public debate before being submitted to Parliament, could see the level of proof required for convictions reduced from the normal criminal level of "beyond reasonable doubt". Instead, terror cases could have a lower evidence threshold, perhaps requiring the prosecution to prove the case "on the balance of probabilities". Asked if British nationals suspected of terrorism should be imprisoned on this lower, civil burden of proof, he said: "Yes, I want that debate." "I’m hoping to get a really sensible debate about this because we have a sunset clause in 2006 and I want to have addressed these issues long before 2006, preferably before the next general election," he said. A sunset clause is a parliament procedure which ensures laws cease to exist at a specified time. Blunkett said he favoured the possibility of terrorism trials being held partly in secret, with certain elements not being communicated to the defence, so as to protect British intelligence sources. He envisaged setting up a group of anti-terrorist judges who alone would be entitled to examine information judged sensitive for national defence and which would not be made public. The proposals looked certain to restart the controversy launched by the 2001 anti-terrorist law which came under attack from human rights organisations. In December 2003 a parliamentary committee found it discriminatory since it did not concern British citizens suspected of terrorist activities, and demanded it be revised with all urgency. Liberty campaigns director Mark Littlewood told the Press Association: "Britain already has the most draconian anti-terror laws in western Europe. "To add to these by further undermining trial by jury and radically reducing the burden of proof is wholly unacceptable." He said the plans for such highly secretive trials, involving security-vetted judges sitting without a jury, would simply undermine civil rights while failing to stop terrorist attacks. "The threat of terrorism needs to be dealt with in increasingly sophisticated ways," he said. "Simply introducing more laws, greater powers and stiffer penalties will go a long way to undermining British justice and will not make our country any safer." Neil Durkin from Amnesty International UK said: "We would be extremely concerned at any further erosion of the right to receive a fair trial in the UK in the name of ’combating terrorism’. "What is particularly worrying about these comments from the home secretary is the suggestion that there might be some wider introduction of internment-like measures that have already created a small-scale Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard by imprisoning 14 foreign nationals without charge or trial." About 660 prisoners, mostly arrested during the Afghanistan conflict after the September 11 attacks, have been held without charge or trial at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 WTF are those dingbats at AI talking about. The british had detention with trial and secret trials for nearly 30 years in Northern Ireland. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2004-2-1 10:02:15 PM |