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Bail Hearing Tomorrow for Muslims Detained as Terror Suspects
Four foreign Muslims currently held under emergency anti-terror laws will have a bail hearing tomorrow.
One of them, Jordanian-born Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh, 33, has been held in Belmarsh high security jail and Broadmoor special hospital since December 19, 2001.
Last month the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) granted him bail in principle and, in theory, today’s hearing should be to set his conditions.
But his solicitor, Gareth Peirce, said she had received no worthwhile reply from the Home Office over conditions for bail in recent weeks.
“I have never seen such an extraordinary, ill-prepared, ill-thought through and cack-handed shambles,” she said.
“How could anyone be convinced that those responsible know what they are doing or that there judgment is worth relying on.”
Three other suspects are also listed for the bail hearing tomorrow.
They are “A”, a married father of five, “P”, who has no arms, and “Q”, who is also serving a sentence for fraud.
Abu Rideh was among the first eight people to be detained without charge or trial under the controversial Anti-Terrorism, Crime and security Act 2001.
The Home Secretary alleges he has connections to international terrorist networks including al Qaida.
At last month’s Siac hearing the panel concluded he “was and remains in our view committed to extremist views” but said his mental health had been affected by the “indefinite nature of his detention as he sees it” and he could be treated better at home.
At a Mental Health Review Tribunal at Broadmoor a week ago Abu Rideh claimed he was being kept in the “UK’s Guantanamo” and was suicidal.
He claimed he had come to Britain to seek asylum in 1995 and travelled to Afghanistan in 2000 to set up a school for Arabic-speaking children, some of whose fathers had been fighting in the country against the Soviets.
Source: The Scotsman
09 March 2005
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