Abu Qatada: Cannot be deported to Jordan.
Posted on 04/09/2008 2:03:38 PM PDT by COUNTrecount
Bin Laden's 'right-hand man' set for life on British benefits after judges rule deportation would breach his human rights
Terror suspect Abu Qatada cannot be deported to Jordan because he risks not getting a fair trial, judges ruled today.
They overturned a decision by a special panel last year that the extremist cleric, who is known as Osama bin Laden's “right-hand man” in Europe, could be sent to his home country.
The Home Office may even have to free Qatada if the Law Lords and European judges uphold the decision of the Court of Appeal and he cannot be brought to trial.
Ministers would be very reluctant to order such a move which would spark uproar.
Qatada could be placed under a control order to monitor him but this system has proved ineffective in several cases where terror suspects have gone on the run.
The Court of Appeal also upheld the panel's blocking of the deportations of two other suspected terrorists to Libya on the grounds that they may be tortured.
The rulings are a blow to the Government's anti-terror laws as it had signed memorandums of understanding with Jordan and Libya that individuals expelled from the UK would get fair trials and not be tortured.
The pacts are key to removing around 20 terror suspects to countries which sanction torture or the death penalty.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith launched an immediate appeal to the Law Lords against the Qatada judgment.
Right-hand man: Qatada is Osama bin Laden's (pictured) spiritual ambassador The case could end up in the European Court of Human Rights leaving the British taxpayer with a bill expected to hit £500,000.
Ministers hailed a ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission last February that Qatada, now in Belmarsh prison, could return to Jordan.
But a panel of three senior judges headed by the Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, today quashed this judgement on the grounds that the Jordanian national could face a trial in which evidence against him may have been extracted by torture.
However, the Government stressed Qatada's deportation was blocked on just one ground, despite claims by his lawyers that he would face beatings, and is confident this obstacle can be resolved.
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: “We are seeking to overturn that point, and I believe that we will be able to secure his deportation to Jordan.
Abu Qatada: Cannot be deported to Jordan.
They aren't the same thing, and you can't handle one with institutions created for the other.
Not all that long ago, a battered English people stood amidst the rubble of their land and defiantly sang “There Will ALWAYS be an England”. Listen, now, hark to the Sound of Silence. Sorry, Winston, you tried your best.
Of course these liberal useful idiot judges don’t care about the human rights of the people these scumbags have killed. How about the human rights of the fifty some odd Londoners that were killed by these mf’ers back in July of 05 when they bombed the London subways? Or the human rights of the over 700 people that were wounded in the attacks? I guess they don’t matter because they don’t wear a stinking diaper on their head.
These people have no perspective or concept of reality. This scumbag should be hung upside down until he dies of an cerebral aneurysm
Western Civilization - it is the beginning of the end. I feel for my children.
No people should leave their survival in the hands of an “elite,” especially a “judicial elite.”
Opponents of Putin are being murdered left and right these days...including at least one who was murdered in the UK.Perhaps these assassins would work for something other than “loyalty”.I’m willing to chip in $50.
The situation is still in flux, so we'll have to wait until they make up their minds, but if this turkey does end up on the dole in GB for life, at least he can look forward to an extra allowance for multiple wives. That's a little hard on those Brits who actually do have jobs, of course. It'd be great if they enjoyed the same protection of the law as beard-boy here.
God Bless
I see he’s got the same prayer scar as “Bumps” Zawahiri. That’s the result of zillions of obsessive prostration prayers by moose limbs. It’s known colloquially as a “zabiba’” (raisin).
Devout moose limbs consider the presence of a zabiba to be a worthy sign of religious dedication and piety. We consider it an excellent biomarker for pulling these clowns out of airport boarding lines.
Just hire a bunch of soccer hooligans to murder him in the street and be done with it.
I’m afraid he’d die in my custody.
Anyone that regularly gets kicked off of this forum is okay by me! Thank you for your kind words.
As the Govt has said, they are still confident of deportation despite this ruling.
Think its a case of wait and see for a while.
Bin Laden’s ‘right-hand man’ set for life on British benefits after judges rule deportation would breach his human rights
By JAMES SLACK
Last updated at 08:40am on 10th April 2008
One of the world’s most dangerous terror suspects was last night preparing for a life on benefits in Britain after judges ruled that his deportation would breach human rights law.
Abu Qatada, dubbed Osama Bin Laden’s “truly dangerous” ambassador in Europe, could be released from jail within months following the Court of Appeal verdict.
Yesterday’s decision has left Britain’s anti-terror laws in tatters. It means the Jordanian father of five - who has been linked to a string of global terror conspiracies and is held in a high security prison under immigration powers - can expect to receive £1,000 a month in handouts.
The taxpayer also faces a bill of tens of thousand of pounds to keep the hate-filled cleric under 24-hour surveillance by security services under a control order unless a last-ditch Home Office appeal is granted by the House of Lords. Even if it is, Qatada could appeal again, to the European Court of Human Rights.
Yesterday the Court of Appeal said Qatada could stay because evidence used against him in any prosecution in his native Jordan may have been obtained by torture - a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
At the same time, 12 Libyan fanatics were cleared to remain in Britain for the rest of their lives by a second human rights ruling. They include an asylum seeker considered a “real and direct threat” to security who had a map marked with the flightpath to Birmingham Airport.
The rulings mean that - despite Tony Blair’s promise in the immediate aftermath of the 7/7 attacks that the “rules of the game have changed” - not a single international terrorist has been forcibly removed from this country.
Almost three years on, the only Islamic fanatics to depart are eight Algerians who went voluntarily.
The Home Office had secured a Memorandum of Understanding with both Jordan and Libya, which said that returned terror suspects would not face torture. But judges - torpedoing the much-heralded strategy - said there was no guarantee that the Libyans would not suffer ill treatment or harm in the future.
Grave doubts must now be cast on the remaining 11 deportation cases before the courts, many of which are understood to involve Algerians. A separate agreement with Algeria - which has an appalling human rights record - has yet to be tested, and could be struck down in the same way as that signed by Libya.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer, who recently advised Gordon Brown on national security, said: “Yet again, terrorists are laughing at us and remaining in this country at the taxpayer’s expense.
“Abu Qatada, Bin Laden’s twisted mouthpiece, stays with us inside this country. What a shambles.”
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: “This deals a major blow to the Government’s assurances that Memorandums of Understanding are the answer in seeking to deport terror suspects.”
The Qatada ruling is particularly devastating for the Home Office, which has been trying to deport the former asylum seeker for three years.
He was first detained in 2002, after spending ten months on the run immediately after September 11.
Ministers had been confident he would be booted out after securing the Memorandum of Understanding with Jordan in August 2005. It gave assurances he would not be tortured or ill-treated.
But, in a ruling which displays the true reach of human rights law, the Court of Appeal said that - while Qatada might not be harmed - witnesses who may be called to give evidence against him in any future trial held by the Jordanian authorities may have been tortured.
The judges said this would be a breach of the right to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Qatada remains in London’s Belmarsh jail with other fanatics, including hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza.
But if the Home Office loses an expected appeal to the House of Lords, Qatada will be set free. The Government has no immigration power to hold those it has no realistic prospect of deporting.
Instead, officials would have to rely on placing Qatada - whose wife and children live in West London - under a control order, and hope he does not abscond. A string of international and homegrown terrorist suspects have gone on the run while under the shambolic orders.
The Libyan ruling, handed down by the same three Court of Appeal judges, was equally devastating. It leaves the Memorandum of Under-standing with that country in tatters.
The judges, headed by Master of the Rolls Sir Anthony Clarke, upheld an earlier ruling by the special immigration appeal court that two men known only as AS and DD could not be removed in case the agreement with Libya was breached at a later date.
The men, who had been on bail, were immediately released from any court conditions. Deportation proceedings against a further ten Libyans were abandoned, after officials admitted they had no prospect of success.
The Home Office responded by placing the men under what were described as “strict” control orders, but even the most restrictive conditions would allow the Libyans to roam the streets for ten hours each day.
Last night, Qatada’s solicitor poured scorn on the Government, and Tony Blair’s deportation promise, which had been part of a 12-point terror plan drawn up in direct response to the loss of 52 innocent lives in the July 7 London attacks. Many of the measures have since collapsed.
Gareth Peirce said: “It is of the greatest importance to us all that there are rules, that they cannot be changed and that they are in no way treated as a game. We welcome the court’s decision.”
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: “The Government’s top objective is to keep the public safe and I am disappointed that the courts have found that deportations to Libya can’t go ahead for now.
“I am pleased the courts dismissed all but one of Abu Qatada’s reasons for appeal. We are seeking to overturn that point, and I believe we will be able to secure his deportation to Jordan and we will push for it as soon as possible. In the meantime, he remains behind bars.”
• KEY AL QAEDA FIGURE ‘IS DEAD’
An Al Qaeda planner linked to terror attacks in Britain and against British subjects around the world is said to have died near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said intelligence indicated that Obaidah Al Masri had died of natural causes - thought to be hepatitis - and not in a series of recent American airstrikes targeting his hideouts in Pakistan’s tribal area of Waziristan.
Intelligence officers said that Al Masri, a trained bomb-maker originally from Algeria, was at the “core of Al Qaeda”.
He is known to have been involved in the recruiting of British-born Pakistanis and other “foreigners” for operations in Europe.
A U.S. official said: “Al Qaeda lost something when this man died. He was someone who had ties to operations outside of the South Asia region.”
A British official said : “He is not at the very top of Al Qaeda but has been part of the core circle for a long time.”
U.S. officials declined to discuss Al Masri’s whereabouts when he died.
Much of Al Qaeda’s key leadership is believed to be holed up in remote areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border.
This person is a foreign citizen. Since when did a government have a responsibility to protect a foreign citizen outside it’s borders? The right of foreign citizens to remain in the country should be entirely at the discretion of the government, and anything that happens to them once they’re outside our border could best be summed up with the phrase ‘not our problem mate’....
Rather missing the point to blame the judges - they're only applying the law, and it's the state of the law which the problem. These perverse decisions have become more frequent only since the simultaneous introduction on the one hand of extremely strong anti-terror legislation, but on the other hand of the incorporation of the human rights charter into English law. Collisions are inevitable as a result.
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