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| Britain |
| Who paid to free Abu Qatada? |
| 2008-05-09 |
| A former British hostage held in Iraq today revealed that he helped pay the bail for jailed radical preacher Abu Qatada. Norman Kember, a 77-year-old peace campaigner from Pinner, said he gave the money out of “kindness” in return for Qatada's help while he was being held by his kidnappers. Mr Kember was saved by the SAS after four months in captivity at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds. He was criticised after his release over claims — which he later denied — that he had failed to thank his SAS rescuers. Extremist cleric Qatada is viewed by the Home Office as a serious danger to the public. Officials are trying to deport him to Jordan but yesterday he won an appeal against his detention and will now be freed on bail under a 22 hour-a-day curfew. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and opposition parties have hit out at the ruling amid concern that the release of Qatada — once described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe — will pose a threat to national security. Today, however, Mr Kember said he felt that Qatada should be freed because the British authorities had failed to prosecute him. He said that if Qatada, who has been in jail awaiting deportation since 2002, had been convicted then he should serve his sentence, but in the absence of a trial it was wrong to continue to detain him. “If you want to keep him in jail you have to have good reasons for doing it otherwise al Qaeda have you — if you don't follow your process of justice,” he said. Mr Kember said he had given hundreds, rather than thousands, of pounds and had sent Qatada a copy of his book, Hostage In Iraq. He added that he expected to be criticised. He said that he hoped Qatada's release “would encourage a conversation with Muslims” and greater understanding of the religion and urged more people to try to speak to the cleric to “understand what his position is and why he takes it”. He added: “I always think we are in danger of demonising Islam and I think we have to have a more open discussion about these things. The Government obviously doesn't.” Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian, was convicted in his absence in Jordan of terrorist offences in the 1990s. Judges last week blocked a government bid to deport him back to Jordan because of the risk that evidence obtained by torture would be used to prosecute him, although the Home Office is mounting an appeal. Mr Kember and three other men were kidnapped in Baghdad in November 2005 by a group calling itself the Swords of Truth Brigade. One of the hostages, American Tom Fox, was murdered by his captors. After his rescue, the head of the British Army, General Sir Mike Jackson, said he was “saddened” by Mr Kember's apparent lack of gratitude towards his SAS saviours. |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #3 No, he's on the other side. |
| Posted by: ed 2008-05-09 18:05 |
| #2 Does this guy have the Stockholm Syndrome or what? |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2008-05-09 17:53 |
| #1 He's basically a friggin dunce... Colonel Bob Stewart, a former British Commander under United Nations command in Bosnia from September 1992 to May 1993 suggested that Mr Kember and people like him were a liability, since he had ignored advice not to go to Baghdad and the security services, the British government and multinational forces had diverted valuable time and resources to rescue a "foolish, albeit well-intentioned, meddling civilian". On 7 November 2006 Iraqi government troops arrested individuals suspected of involvement in the kidnap and imprisonment of Norman Kember. The same day, Kember released a statement in which he refused to testify against them. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-05-09 17:10 |