Verily, Allâh enjoins Justice and Correctness, and helping kith and kin and forbids lewd acts and all kinds of evil deed and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may take heed. (An-Nahl: 90)

No charges, no trials – no justice for U.K. terror suspects?

The shots being fired in the War on Terror may be far from the West itself but prisoners continue to be captured in its heartland. In the U.K., one of the most recent captives was Mohammed Abdullah Azam, a 32-year-old computer programmer from Luton, Bedfordshire, who was charged on September 18^th under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act with collecting information that could be used by terrorists. A few days earlier, six men of Middle Eastern and North African origin were arrested at various addresses across London followed a joint operation between Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorism Branch and MI5 (the main internal intelligence agency). They were suspected of raising money for terrorist groups and providing other assistance.

These British arrests came just a few days after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States said that it had "identified, investigated and disrupted" an al-Qaeda cell made up of five U.S. citizens in the northern city of Buffalo. The five, all U.S.-born men of Yemeni descent, have been charged with providing "material support and resources to terrorists."

But what happens next? In recent cases involving terror suspects who are U.K. or U.S. citizens, the detainees have been questioned and, in some instances, charged with specific offences that the defendants can challenge. But for most foreign nationals held by the U.S. and U.K. in the year following the September 11^th 2001attacks, such transparency, together with the opportunity to defend themselves in court, remains elusive.

Civil liberty groups say they are deeply concerned about what they describe as serious human rights violations occurring as a consequence of the U.K. and U.S. authorities' response to the events of September 11^th.

Following America’s declaration of its War on Terror, the U.K. passed the controversial Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA). In order to enact the ATCSA’s unusual legal devices, the U.K. became the only European Union member to derogate from relevant provisions in international treaties. According to the ATCSA, foreign nationals can be held indefinitely without charge or trial and without being able to see and challenge the evidence used to justify their detention. After last year’s attacks, 11 foreign nationals have been detained under the ATCSA.

“Amnesty International believes that this is tantamount to charging a person with a criminal offence, convicting the person concerned without trial and imposing on him/her an open-ended sentence,” Elisa De Pieri, a spokesperson for the human rights group, told EWR. “In our opinion, the ATCSA has effectively created a shadow criminal justice system devoid of a number of crucial safeguards present in the ordinary criminal justice system.

The U.K. minister responsible for domestic affairs, Home Secretary David Blunkett, has dismissed such criticism as an "airy, fairy libertarian" view of the world and argued that public safety and national security must come first in what he sees as times of national emergency. His argument echoes that of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft but unlike the U.S., the U.K. allowed its courts to inspect the new legislation. To Blunkett’s doubtless chagrin, a panel of the special immigration appeals commission ruled at the end of July that the home secretary had acted unlawfully by discriminating against foreign nationals.

However, because the Home Office has appealed against that ruling, those non-British detainees remain in custody and their appeals will not be heard until later this year.

The ATCSA allows those accused to leave the country rather than remain in detention and two of the 11 foreigners detained in the U.K. have since returned home. This curious provision raises the question of why, if these men are suspected of being dangerous terrorists, they have been allowed to roam freely abroad. In any case, Pieri tells EWR that significant wrongdoing and damage has already been inflicted even on those who have been released.

“Both of these people spent many months in detention before their cases were resolved,” she says. “The initial arrest and detention has had a major impact on the future life (eg. livelihood) of at least one of the two people, as well as on his family.” As for those who remain in U.K. detention, Amnesty International lists a litany of concerns, from the need for a transparent judicial process to calls for better health care and recreational facilities in prison.

Owing to legal restrictions, the public is not allowed to know who the detainees are. The British media has been able to report that they are mostly Algerian, Moroccan, Egyptian and Tunisian and that most have been arrested before. One was tried and acquitted in March 2000, after being accused of supporting Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group . Two detainees have received compensation from the Metropolitan police for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. Some are reportedly taking anti-depressants and two have been classed as suicide risks.

Other terrorist suspects detained in the U.K. have been presented with official accusations, visible evidence and the chance to fight those charges in court.  Sulayman Balal Zainulabidin, a 44-year-old chef and convert to Islam, was arrested three weeks after September 11^th and held for 10 months in a maximum security prison. He was charged with operating an Internet site that allegedly offered to send would-be terrorists to the United States for arms training courses. The defendant said he was merely helping people find security-related work. A British jury acquitted him in July.

In addition, U.S. attempts to have suspects extradited by its staunch ally have ironically been thwarted by British courts. Lotfi Raissi was an Algerian-born pilot believed by the FBI to have been the chief trainer for some of the September 11^th hijackers. Yasser al-Siri, a London-based bookseller, was accused of operating a fake charity that channelled funds to al-Qaeda. In both cases, judges ruled that the evidence against them was insufficient to justify extradition, and the suspects were released. The FBI continues to seek the extradition of Egyptian-born Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Imam who allegedly recruited Richard Reed, a U.K. citizen dubbed “the shoe bomber,” among others.

The U.K. experience offers some contrast with the U.S. handling of its terrorist suspects. In the U.S., an apparent lack of conventional evidence has led to some unconventional legal practices. Zacarias Moussaoui, who admits to being a member of al-Qaeda, has been charged with involvement in the September 11^th attacks – but authorities have yet to demonstrate any evidence linking him to the crime. Jose Padilla, the so-called "dirty bomber" accused of planning a radioactive attack in the Washington D.C. area, was arrested at such an early stage of the alleged plot that virtually no firm evidence against him apparently exists. As a result, the U.S. has simply refused to try him and holds him in indefinite custody.

The judicial approach to terror suspects in the U.S. is governed by the Patriot Act, which was hurriedly passed after the September 11^th attacks. According to this legislation, material witnesses can be detained indefinitely without judicial review, and the number of such witnesses can be kept from the public. Immigrants can be detained without the usual “reasonable suspicion” and around 1,200 foreign residents have been interned indefinitely without charges. The authorities can also eavesdrop on lawyer-client conversations if it suspects "terrorist activity."

The government has also given itself the right to label anyone an "enemy combatant" and jail them indefinitely in military prisons without charges or the right to question this designation. The president was given the right to create secret military tribunals, which circumvent the normal rules of evidence and the presumption of innocence. The sole adjudicator of appeals is the president himself.

This tough U.S. approach has also resulted in the long detention without charge, legal counsel or trial of some U.K. citizens: four men captured in Afghanistan and held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Relatives of the four have begun legal proceedings to compel the U.K. and U.S. governments either to try the captives or free them. Human rights groups have urged the two governments to ensure all the detainees enjoy prisoner of war status in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and called on the U.S. either to initiate impartial judicial proceedings or release the detainees.

London and Washington continue to argue that an extraordinary threat to national security had compelled them to extend the ordinary approaches to dealing with suspected terrorists, especially foreign nationals. Speaking after the U.K. judges had ruled the ATCSA legislation discriminatory, Home Office minister Beverley Hughes told reporters that the court had failed to understand that “in taking the powers in the emergency legislation we have simply extended that existing provision in relation to foreign nationals in the light of the public emergency facing us."

But for those who see such moves as a serious blow to civil liberties, the authorities have gone too far. Amnesty’s Pieri insists the U.K. government must uphold the international minimum standards for a fair trial in all cases.  “A shadow criminal justice system, which deprives people of knowing the grounds for their detention and of the possibility of effectively challenging the secret evidence against them is unacceptable.”

Shaheen Chughtai is a writer who has worked as a journalist in the Middle East for many years and currently lives in Great Britain.