Lawyers acting on behalf of a suspected terrorist, accused of being 'Osama bin Laden's ambassador in Europe', are expected to appeal against plans to return him to Jordan if a court rules tomorrow that he should be deported. Abu Qatada, an extremist preacher whose videos were found in the Hamburg flat of Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, is being held in a high security prison. The security services privately call him the most dangerous man in Britain, but human rights groups warn that a decision to deport him will represent a worrying shift in the government's stance on torture.Human Rights Watch said sending Qatada back to Jordan, which has not signed a treaty banning torture, would set a dangerous precedent. 'There is an important principle at stake here,' said Ben Ward, associate director of HRW. 'The prohibition against torture is an absolute prohibition. Governments are not allowed to deport people to countries which do not outlaw the use of torture, no matter what they have done. Such a ruling would create a loophole in the prohibition on torture.'
The government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Jordan, which it insists will protect Qatada from being tortured if he is returned. It has signed similar understandings with Libya and Lebanon and struck an agreement with the Algerian government over the return of a number of alleged Islamic terrorists. But human rights groups say such agreements will do little to protect deported individuals.
| Because they don't trust the governments, which you'd think would cause them to wonder some rather fundamental truths about them. Like they're run by thugs and aren't deserving of any special consideration by the progressive Left. |
A Siac judgment in March 2004 claimed Qatada was 'at the centre in the United Kingdom of terrorist activities associated with al-Qaeda'. It was said he had links to bin Laden and the then head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The court heard Qatada entered Britain on a false passport, and had raised funds for terrorist activities and helped to recruit extremists. He was also linked to Abu Doha, an Algerian alleged to have run a terror network operating out of Frankfurt that planned atrocities across Europe as well as a thwarted plot to blow up Los Angeles airport. But Qatada's lawyers say much of the evidence against him was provided by detainees in Guantanamo Bay who