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In Britain, Freed Terror Suspects Suffer
 Nine terrorism suspects who were freed from prison under a new British anti-terrorism law are living under such harsh and confusing control orders that one has been readmitted to a mental hospital and several others are completely nutz being treated by psychiatrists, their lawyer said Friday.
| Certainly they didn't need a psychiatrist's attention before. Did they? |
Attorney Gareth Peirce announced plans to appeal Britain's new anti-terror law in the High Court, saying it violates basic civil liberties the way McCarthyism limited freedom of speech in the United States in the 1950s. "These men, who came to England as asylum seekers from repressive countries such as Algeria and Tunisia, were held in high-security prisons for three years, during which time they were never formally charged, or even told what they are accused of," Peirce said. "Now, each individual has had control orders imposed that brand him, forever, as an individual involved in terrorism-related activity. He can never disprove that label, or stop it being imposed by association on his family and friends," she said.
| I ask myself, "What would Roger Bigod have done with them?" |
Ten foreign suspects, including a radical preacher accused of links to al-Qaida, were released last week from high-security detention in Britain. The anti-terror law, recently approved after a bitter debate in Parliament, allows terrorist suspects to be electronically tagged and required to live under 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfews in private homes where they are denied the use of telephones or the Internet and must apply to the government to talk to outsiders. On Monday, Peirce, who represents nine of the suspects, and Natalia Garcia, who represents the other one, said the 10 men were released under such confusing conditions that one was left without food temporarily and another was afraid to take out the trash. On Friday, Peirce said one freed suspect was told that his elderly mother couldn't visit him in his new home because her name was not on the government's list of acceptable visitors. Peirce said another suspect was told his two children couldn't stop by his apartment.
| Stop! Stop! You're breaking my heart!... No. Wait. That's the chili. Go on. |
The lawyer said the 10 suspects' long imprisonment and confusion over the control orders had left three of them with serious mental illness.
| ..."that they never, ever had before! Really!" |
One, a single man, was so afraid of unintentionally violating the control orders that he was readmitted to a mental hospital where he had been treated while imprisoned, Peirce said.
| "Well, yeah. He's nutz. But this is a different kind of nutz!" |
She said several other freed suspects were being treated for depression. "Some of them are completely confused and afraid of breaching their new control orders, especially the men who don't speak good English," said Peirce, who has been allowed to visit the suspects she represents in their new homes. Only two of the 10 suspects have been identified under a court order, and the government has not said where they are living. One of the two named suspects is Abu Qatada, a radical Muslim cleric described by officials as Osama bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe" and an inspiration for Mohammed Atta, the lead Sept. 11 hijacker.
| He's the guy who issued the fatwah saying it was okay to slit the throats of children if it's in the cause of jihad. |
The other is Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh, a Palestinian who came to Britain in 1995 and was granted refugee status. Claims against him include an allegation he publicly threatened to carry out a bombing and that he was involved with bin Laden associates in Britain and abroad. The rest are only identified by letters of the alphabet.
| "But they're innocent! They din't do nothin'!" |
Posted by: Fred 2005-03-19 |
