Another Blow To Britain’s Crumbling Control Order Regime
According to the British government, a Kurdish Iraqi imam living in the north of England was such a threat to national security that, for the last three years and four months, he was subjected to a control order, a form of house arrest involving, but not limited to curfews, tagging, Home Office vetting of all visitors, a ban on the use of computers and mobile phones, and random security checks at all times of the day or night.
The government has maintained, since May 2006, that it was relying on secret evidence to justify its conclusion that this man — identified only as AE — posed a significant terrorist threat, and that the control order was necessary because it could not compromise its intelligence sources and methods by putting him on trial, which, it maintained, might lead to sensitive information being revealed in court. However, last week, in the wake of a ruling by the Law Lords in June, which gave the government only two options — to provide more information to the control order detainees, to allow them to challenge the basis of their control orders, or to release them outright — home secretary Alan Johnson announced, in a letter to AE’s solicitors, that he had chosen the latter option, and that AE was now a free man.This outcome had been expected since June, because AE’s case was due in court next week, and the government already knew that a judge would quash his control order, unless officials agreed to provide him with sufficient evidence to challenge his control order, because this is exactly what happened in July, in the cases of two British nationals, and was repeated three weeks ago, in the case of a joint British-Libyan national identified only as AF.
To understand how we came to such a bizarre and ridiculous situation in which, one minute, a man is regarded as one of the most dangerous terror suspects in the UK and held on a control order, and the next minute is a free man, because the government is unwilling to have its evidence tested objectively, we need to return to March 2005, when the control order regime was first implemented, and to understand that, from the beginning, it was an ad hoc system cooked up in haste to replace the government’s previous method of holding terror suspects without charge or trial — imprisoning them in Belmarsh high-security prison — which the Law Lords had ruled illegal in December 2004, three years after it was first introduced.
Critics of the system stated from the beginning that depriving men of their liberty on the basis of secret evidence and refusing to put them on trial because of an anachronistic desire to protect intelligence sources and methods was both unjust and unnecessary, because of the appalling secrecy — special advocates were appointed to deal with the secret evidence in closed sessions, but were prohibited from telling their clients anything about what took place in those sessions — and because organizations like JUSTICE, the all-party law reform and human rights organization, had been demonstrating for years (PDF) that most countries in the world had found ways of presenting sensitive information in court (intercept evidence, for example) without compromising intelligence sources and methods, and that the UK should be no exception.
However, it was not until June that the government was finally obliged to take notice of the mounting opposition to the system, when the Law Lords ruled unanimously that imposing control orders breaches Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial, because a suspect held under a control order is not given “sufficient information about the allegations against him to enable him to give effective instructions to the special advocate assigned to him.”
In the wake of the Lords’ ruling, the government tried to maintain its composure. Alan Johnson stated that the judgment was “extremely disappointing,” and added, “All control orders will remain in force for the time being and we will continue to seek to uphold them in the courts. In the meantime, we will consider this judgment, and our options, carefully.”
However, it was clear that the regime’s days were numbered, and this was confirmed when, in two cases in July, Mr. Justice Mitting ruled that the government was obliged to drop a control order against a British national and a father of five, identified only as BM, who, in May, was forced to move from his home in east London to a one-bedroom flat in Leicester on the basis of claims by the Home Office that he was “a prominent member of a network of Islamist extremists,” and followed up by ruling that the government’s secrecy regarding the evidence against another British national, identified only as AN, had “gone so far as to deny AN knowledge of the essence of the case against him,” and it was reinforced when AF’s control order was quashed by a judge three weeks ago, and the home secretary again gave up the fight, choosing to grant AF his liberty rather than reveal any of the secret evidence against him.
Long-standing critics of the regime were not the only observers to wonder how dangerous these men could really be if, after years of being treated as though they were particularly explosive packages, who would detonate if left unobserved for more than a minute, the government chose to grant them total freedom rather than test the allegations against them in open court.
It follows, of course, that questions must inevitably be raised regarding the quality of the government’s supposed evidence, and the reliability of the intelligence services, and the only conclusion I can reasonably draw is that the government was content to deprive people of their liberty on little more than a whim, or a hunch based on ill-defined associations and untested raw intelligence reports, and certainly not on the basis of anything that could objectively be examined and considered as evidence.
While I wait to see whether the remaining 14 control orders will, as anticipated, also be quashed (and note that another appears to have been quietly dropped by the government over the last few months, with no fanfare and no announcements whatsoever), and while I also wait to see how the government will respond to forthcoming challenges in the cases of other men held on deportation bail, rather than on control orders, I leave the final word on AE’s case, for now, to Mohammed Ayub, his solicitor, who told the Guardian:
For three-and-a-half years he and his family have had to live a life which has been controlled in every respect by the Home Office: where he lives, when he may go out, where he may go, who he may meet, what employment he may undertake. During the whole of this period, he has never been told on what basis he is suspected of being a terrorist and he has never had a fair hearing before a court at which he could challenge the allegation made against him.Ayub explained, as the Guardian described it, that AE, his wife and three children “might not get over the psychological harm of the past three years,” and added, “AE will consider carefully his legal options in respect of seeking damages from the home secretary for the wrong that has been done him and his family.” He also stated that control orders were “fundamentally oppressive and unfair”, and “flawed in their conception, execution and review.”
This prompted a rote response from a Home Office spokeswoman, who, as the Guardian put it, said that “revoking the order did not change the assessment that control orders remained the best available disruptive tool for managing the risk posed by suspected terrorists they could not prosecute or deport,” but it is unlikely that this “assessment” will prevail, as Alan Johnson has asked Lord Carlile, the government’s “independent reviewer” of terrorism laws, to report back on whether control orders should continue, and even Carlile, a supporter of the regime in principle, has stated in his annual reports (PDF) that no control order should be extended beyond two years “save in genuinely exceptional circumstances.”
In a recent statement, backed up by peers and MPs on the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, Carlile refuted claims by the Home Office that “A definite end-date would mean individuals on control orders could simply disengage from involvement in terrorism-related activity on the basis that they knew they could re-engage at the end of that time period,” reiterating his assertion that control orders lasting more than two years can only be justified “in a few exceptional cases,” and telling the Committee, “After that time, at least the immediate utility of even a dedicated terrorist will seriously have been disrupted.”
With these opinions so publicly available, it appears that Lord Carlile is unlikely to present the government with a new escape route, and that the UK may, finally, have to rejoin the majority of the civilized world in accepting that, even in the struggle against terrorism, it is unacceptable to imprison men — or otherwise deprive them of their liberty — on the basis of secret evidence.
Note: For a BBC interview with AE, recorded in June, see here.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009, and if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.As published exclusively on Cageprisoners.
For other articles dealing with Belmarsh, control orders, deportation bail, deportations and extraditions, see Deals with dictators undermined by British request for return of five Guantánamo detainees (August 2007), Britain’s Guantánamo: the troubling tale of Tunisian Belmarsh detainee Hedi Boudhiba, extradited, cleared and abandoned in Spain (August 2007), Guantánamo as house arrest: Britain’s law lords capitulate on control orders (November 2007), The Guantánamo Britons and Spain’s dubious extradition request (December 2007), Britain’s Guantánamo: control orders renewed, as one suspect is freed (February 2008), Spanish drop “inhuman” extradition request for Guantánamo Britons (March 2008), UK government deports 60 Iraqi Kurds; no one notices (March 2008), Repatriation as Russian Roulette: Will the Two Algerians Freed from Guantánamo Be Treated Fairly? (July 2008), Abu Qatada: Law Lords and Government Endorse Torture (February 2009), Ex-Guantánamo prisoner refused entry into UK, held in deportation centre (February 2009), Home Secretary ignores Court decision, kidnaps bailed men and imprisons them in Belmarsh (February 2009), Britain’s insane secret terror evidence (March 2009), Torture taints all our lives (published in the Guardian’s Comment is free), Britain’s Guantánamo: Calling For An End To Secret Evidence, Five Stories From Britain’s Guantánamo: (1) Detainee Y, Five Stories From Britain’s Guantánamo: (2) Detainee BB, Five Stories From Britain’s Guantánamo: (3) Detainee U, Five Stories From Britain’s Guantánamo: (4) Hussain Al-Samamara, Five Stories From Britain’s Guantánamo: (5) Detainee Z, Britain’s Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction? and URGENT APPEAL on British terror laws: Get your MP to support Diane Abbott’s Early Day Motion on the use of secret evidence (all April 2009), and Taking liberties with our justice system and Death in Libya, betrayal in the West (both for the Guardian), Law Lords Condemn UK’s Use of Secret Evidence And Control Orders (June 2009), Miliband Shows Leadership, Reveals Nothing About Torture To Parliamentary Committee (June 2009), Britain’s Torture Troubles: What Tony Blair Knew (June 2009), Seven years of madness: the harrowing tale of Mahmoud Abu Rideh and Britain’s anti-terror laws, Would you be able to cope?: Letters by the children of control order detainee Mahmoud Abu Rideh, Control order detainee Mahmoud Abu Rideh to be allowed to leave the UK (all June 2009), Testing control orders and Dismantle the secret state (for the Guardian), UK government issues travel document to control order detainee Mahmoud Abu Rideh after horrific suicide attempt (July 2009), Secret evidence in the case of the North West 10 “terror suspects” (August 2009), Letting go of control orders (for the Guardian, September 2009).
A Truly Shocking Guantánamo Story: Judge Confirms That An Innocent Man Was Tortured To Make False Confessions
30.9.09
In four years of researching and writing about Guantánamo, I have become used to uncovering shocking information, but for sheer cynicism, I am struggling to think of anything that compares to the revelations contained in the unclassified ruling in the habeas corpus petition of Fouad al-Rabiah, a Kuwaiti prisoner whose release was ordered last week [...]
Andy Worthington Discusses Bagram on al-Jazeera
30.9.09
Yesterday, I was delighted to take part in “Is Bagram The Other Guantánamo?,” a discussion about the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan on The Riz Khan Show on al-Jazeera, following a recent announcement by the Obama administration that it is planning to introduce Guantánamo-style tribunals for the 600 or so prisoners held at [...]
Torture And Futility: Is This The End Of The Military Commissions At Guantánamo?
29.9.09
Last Monday, when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants in the long-delayed 9/11 trial at Guantánamo were scheduled to make an appearance before their Military Commission judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, to discuss some procedural arrangements and the ongoing dispute about the mental health of one of the men, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the naval [...]
Torture in Bagram and Guantánamo: The Declaration of Ahmed al-Darbi
29.9.09
The following statement, made by Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed al-Darbi on July 1, 2009, was originally posted by the U.C. Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, a University of California research project, coordinated by Almerindo Ojeda, which is well worth visiting. I’m posting it here to accompany my article, “Torture And [...]
A Teenage Refugee Freed From Guantánamo And Released In Ireland
29.9.09
On Sunday, following the revelation of the identity of one of two Uzbeks released from Guantánamo to take up a new life in the Republic of Ireland, I published a letter from Guantánamo written by this man, Oybek Jabbarov, and also included a statement by his lawyer, Michael J. Mone Jr., to a Committee of [...]
Obama Drops Plan For New “Indefinite Detention” Policy At Guantánamo
28.9.09
Last Wednesday, Obama administration officials told the Washington Post, as Peter Finn described it, that the administration “has decided not to seek legislation to establish a new system of preventive detention to hold terrorism suspects.”
In some ways, of course, this is a relief. In May, in a major speech on national security, when President Obama [...]
In some ways, of course, this is a relief. In May, in a major speech on national security, when President Obama [...]
The Story of Oybek Jabbarov, An Innocent Man Freed From Guantánamo
27.9.09
Yesterday I reported that the US government had released three prisoners from Guantánamo, repatriating Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni, and sending two unidentified prisoners — presumed to be Uzbeks — to new homes in Ireland. I suspected that one of the men was Oybek Jabbarov, an Uzbek who was cleared for release from [...]
The Guantánamo Archive: 600 Blog Posts And Counting …
27.9.09
I never dreamed, when I began blogging full-time two years and four months ago, as an offshoot of my book The Guantánamo Files, that the Internet offered such extraordinary opportunities for independent journalists to focus on particular issues and to get their voices heard, or that I would end up with a million-word archive chronicling [...]
Former Guantánamo Prisoner Binyam Mohamed Speaks (Video)
27.9.09
On August 30, at “Beyond Guantánamo,” an event organized by Cageprisoners, the British resident Binyam Mohamed, who was subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture, and was finally released from Guantánamo in February this year, after nearly seven years in US custody, spoke for the first time in public. Binyam talked about Shaker Aamer, the British [...]
Three Prisoners Released From Guantánamo: Two To Ireland, One To Yemen
26.9.09
Reuters, following up on an announcement by the Justice Department, has just reported that three prisoners have been released from Guantánamo. Two men, who have not been identified, have been sent to Ireland, following successful negotiations between the Irish government and Daniel Fried, the Obama administration’s Special Envoy to Guantánamo. Their identities are being protected [...]
After this post was made, I received an email of thanks for a comment on the story on his blog straightaway. Below is an extract.
Good to hear from you. I appreciated the Orwell analogy - and thanks for the links! Best, Andy -- Andy Worthington Author & journalist
the author of "The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison" (published by Pluto Press and distributed in the US by Macmillan) http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/the-guantanamo-files/ See the definitive prisoner list here: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/03/03/guantanamo-the-definitive-prisoner-list/ To receive automatic feeds of Andy's articles on publication, visit: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/feed/
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=4599ad84-db26-411d-a42d-a1c87e27cc06)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment