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Terror suspects could be declared mentally ill to keep them locked up
Foreign terror suspects detained indefinitely in Britain could be
sectioned under the Mental Health Act to keep them in jail, the Mail on Sunday has learned.
Legal representatives of the 12 detainees have been warned by
lawyers in Whitehall that the move is being considered
by `panicking' officials after the House of Lords ruled last
month
that the detentions
were discriminatory and disproportionate to the suspects'
alleged
offences.
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary,
is not bound by the Lords' decision but
it is an intense political embarrassment
He has pledged to respond to
the criticism in the next fortnight.
In March he must also apply to
Parliament for the renewal of the anti-terrorism
laws rushed in after the
September 11 attacks on America in
2001.
Mr Clarke faces growing discontent on Labour's backbenches
and
the within the legal profession over
laws and if MPs vote him down, the
suspects would have to go free.
The Attorney-General has had to
draft extra lawyers into the Home
Office to try to find a solution accept
able to MPs.
The detainees' advisers complain
that any attempt to use the Mental
Health Act to circumvent the rulling
would be a `vicious irony' redolent of
George Orwell's 1984.
They say many of the suspects do suffer from psycho
logical problems, but only because of
the legal limbo in which the Govern
ment has placed them.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday
revealed that a second lawyer
appointed by Ministers to represent
the terrorist suspects — Rick Scannell
had resigned in disgust at the failure
of the Government to reform the law.
The 13 remaining special advocates
have resolved to give the Government
`a few more weeks' to sort out
problem.
Each year about 26,000 people
sectioned by the courts, forcing them
to be locked up until their mental
illness has been treated.
Home Office officials admit that
Clarke has complained about the `mess' left behind by David
Blunket
when he resigned as Home Secretary
the day before the Lords delived
their damning verdict.
He believes Mr Blunkett `failed
engage' during his last six months
the job because he was so distract
by his affair with Kimberly Quinn
`Clarke was appalled by the state of his inheritance,' said a
senior
Government legal adviser. `He had this problem from the Lords to
deal with on his first day in the job and was astonished by the lack
of preparation.
`The feeling was that Blunkett had failed to engage properly with
the issue because he was so distracted by the furore over his
mistress.'
Shortly before Mr Blunkett resigred, he was quoted — among a
number
of disobliging remarks about Cabinet colleagues — as criticising
Mr
Clarke for `taking his foot off the accelerator' as Education
Secretary.
Mr Clarke is now seeking assurances of fair treatment from the
suspects' home countries to enable them to be deported without
the
risk of being tortured or sentenced to death.
Four Britons who had been held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay
are expected to return home today after the British Government
secured their release.
Civil liberties groups argue that it is
inconsistent of Ministers not to apply
the same consideration to Britain's 12 suspects, most of whom are
held at Belmarsh Prison in South London.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the pressure group Liberty, said last
night:
`It's high time that recent Government action on Guantanamo
Bay was
tlso applied at home.
`Those detained without trial in the UK must be charged or rele~
sed
immediately. It's not an issue of liberal values — it's
the rule of
law.'
Mr Clarke's team is also working on reforms that will allow
evidence
obtained through phone tapping to be admissible for the first time.
The changes to the Organised Crime and Police Bill will allow more
terrorist cases to come to trial, and represent a triumph for the
police in a turf war with the security services.
M15 and M16 had argued that using such evidence would expose their
working methods and allow criminals to find new ways of evading
detection but Scotland Yard has convinced Ministers that without
such a measure. which is common in most Western countries, they are
powerless to nail terrorist masterminds.
Source: Mail on Sunday
24 January 2005
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