Thread: Abu Qatada: once again, he has made fools of us

Yesterday’s European Court ruling against the deportation of the cleric Abu Qatada piles further insult on to a decade-long legal battle that has tied British courts in knots.

Won again: Qatada was jailed after he was suspected of trying to leave the country – which Britain has been wanting for years Photo: REX


By Philip Johnston

8:00PM GMT 17 Jan 2012


Three years ago this week, a British man, Edwin Dyer, was kidnapped by nomads in north-west Africa, where he was working, and handed over to al-Qaeda militants based in Mali. They threatened to kill him if the British government refused to release the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada from prison, where he was awaiting deportation.

A few months later, Mr Dyer was murdered in what Gordon Brown, then prime minister, called “an appalling and barbaric act of terrorism”. We cannot be sure that releasing Qatada would have spared Mr Dyer, since the extremists were also demanding a ransom. In any case, it is the British government’s long-stated policy not to deal with terrorists.

But the question that arose then, and still applies, is this: why was Abu Qatada even in the country to be included in a potential bargain with extremists? Since he was identified as Osama bin Laden’s “ambassador in Europe” after the 9/11 attacks on America, British authorities have been trying to deport him to his native Jordan.

Yet for more than 10 years, every effort to do so has been thwarted by human rights laws. In 2009, it looked as though he would be sent packing when the highest court in the land ruled that his deportation would be lawful, the government having gone to considerable efforts to extract a guarantee from Jordan that Qatada would not be ill‑treated if he was returned. But he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, whose judges yesterday said that in their opinion he could still face an unfair trial, since evidence against him might have been extracted under torture. He could not, therefore, be removed.

In doing this, the European Court moved the legal goalposts: it accepted that he would not be tortured personally – which would prevent his deportation under Article 3 of the convention – but ruled instead that his removal would be a breach of Article 6, the right to a fair trial. At every turn, Britain has found itself hamstrung trying to get rid of a foreign national considered to be a risk to public safety. How has this come about?

Principally, it is to do with the warped application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which was drawn up after the Second World War as a response to the atrocities in Europe. The Abu Qatada saga is an affront to the enlightened attitudes that inspired the convention; it was never envisaged by its architects, many of them British, that it would end up making it impossible for democracies to defend themselves from those who would wish them harm.

This story began in 1993 when Abu Qatada, a Palestinian wanted for terrorist crimes in Jordan, arrived in Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport. He was allowed to settle in Britain as a political refugee precisely because this country has a record of offering sanctuary to the persecuted. This generosity also turned London in the 1990s into a haven for Islamists who had no love for the West, nor for what they regarded as its decadent politics.
By the time the threat was catastrophically apparent in 2001, the capital was derisively being referred to as “Londonistan”, with Abu Qatada as fundamentalist-in-chief. According to security documents, he was responsible for “facilitating the recruitment of young Muslims for jihad”. One file stated: “He has been linked to support of terrorist and extremist activity, including support for anti-US terrorist planning in Jordan during the millennium [celebrations]. He has been a focal point for extremist fund-raising, recruitment and propaganda.”
Another added: “As soon as Abu Qatada had arrived in London and had applied for asylum, he started supporting jihad by recruiting for al-Qaeda. Abu Qatada was considered a major figure for al-Qaeda.”
He went on the run after 9/11 but was arrested in 2002 and held in Belmarsh top-security prison, along with other Islamists the Government wanted to remove but who could not be tried in this country, not least because the security service feared jeopardising its intelligence sources. In any case, Britain did not want to try them but to get rid of them.
There then began an extraordinary legal and political battle that has tied our courts in knots and undermined the rights of Parliament to decide who should be allowed to stay in the country. Qatada’s detention was ruled unlawful on the grounds that since his deportation was blocked under Article 3 of the ECHR, he faced indefinite incarceration. He was even awarded £2,500 compensation for unlawful imprisonment.
In response, the last Labour government introduced a system of control orders to keep Qatada and other Islamists under house arrest. However, this was ruled unlawful by the courts here; it amounted to imprisonment without trial, so the restrictions had to be loosened.
Undaunted, the Home Office tried another tack. Officials opened talks with Jordan to obtain assurances that he would not be tortured if sent back. When these were forthcoming, the Law Lords in 2009 agreed his deportation should proceed.
Yet, three years on, that judgment has now been overturned by the European Court. The Government has three months to appeal but the chances of success are fanciful. In the meantime, Qatada will remain in jail. And here is the most bizarre aspect of this affair. The reason he is in prison is because he breached the conditions of his control order. His offence was that he was suspected of trying to leave the country – the very thing we have wanted him to do for 10 years.
This, then, is the topsy-turvy world that the ECHR has produced – and the latest ruling goes much further than before, when the ban on deportation was effected under Article 3, where someone might face “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”. As the Tory MP Dominic Raab observed yesterday: “The Strasbourg court has imposed a new category of restrictions on our ability to deport serious criminals and suspected terrorists. Placing the burden on Britain to ensure foreign criminals and terrorist suspects are tried according to UK standards in their home countries will impede our capacity to deport those who pose a risk in this country.
“This is a classic example of mission creep, with judicial legislation from Strasbourg riding roughshod over decisions that should be determined by UK courts.”
In fact, this form of judicial expansionism was something explicitly rejected by Lord Phillips, the head of the Supreme Court, who said that evidence of torture in another country “does not require the United Kingdom to retain in this country, to the detriment of national security, a terrorist suspect”.
But what he says does not count, it seems. The judgments of our courts are trumped by a 47-member body set up under the Council of Europe (not the EU), whose president, Sir Nicolas Bratza, is a British lawyer who has never held a senior judge’s job in this country.
Indeed, some of his eminent colleagues in Britain think the problem lies not so much with the European Convention on Human Rights as with the way it is applied by the Strasbourg body. Lord Hoffman, a former Law Lord, said the European Court had been unable to resist the temptation to “aggrandise its jurisdiction” by laying down a “federal law of Europe”. The court should not be allowed to intervene in the detail of domestic law, he added.
But this is exactly what has happened under the ECHR. What began as an attempt to limit the power of the state in relationship to the individual by drawing upon British concepts of liberty has been transformed into a corpus of immutable rights that defy rational expectation. Even the 1951 Refugee Convention, under which Qatada was allowed into Britain in the first place, specifically states that asylum “cannot be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is”.
After all, if you invite someone into your home to protect them from harm, only to find they threaten your well-being, are you not entitled to make them leave? Moreover, paying for them to stay – Qatada and his large family live on benefits – simply adds insult to injury.
Successive prime ministers have voiced indignation about this state of affairs but have merely highlighted their impotence in doing so. Theoretically, the European Court has no power to enforce its judgments; but over the years, politicians have agreed to accept them and the Human Rights Act now makes the rulings justiciable by our own courts.
While some reforms are being negotiated through the Council of Europe, which Britain currently chairs, these are designed to reduce the workload by preventing trivial matters being referred. The case of Abu Qatada is by no means trivial. And those human rights activists who question whether his presence in this country poses a threat should remember the fate of Edwin Dyer.


Abu Qatada: once again, he has made fools of us - Telegraph

I can't think of another country where this situation might happen. If it were to occur in some other member state of the EU , he'd be pushing up daisies by now or back in Jordon , and they would put up with a few weeks of flack.

Meanwhile, taxpayers continue to support him and his family.

Don't they have a small boat to put him in and tow him out into the channel?

That might work?

Abu Qatada banned from school run
13 Feb 2012

Abu Qatada will be banned from taking his youngest child to school when he is released from prison today.


Abu Qatada will be banned from taking his youngest child to school when is released from prison

In a victory for the Government, a court has ruled that the preacher’s hours under curfew will not allow him out at school opening and closing times.

Under the terms of his release, the cleric - described as Osama Bin Laden’s ambassador in Europe – must obey a 22-hour curfew, wear and electronic tag and is banned from using the internet and telephone.

The Home Office went to court on Friday to obtain an order to ensure that his hours of freedom would not allow him to take his youngest son to and from school.

A senior legal source told the Daily Mail: “The court came back and said the Home Office request was fine. Abu Qatada won’t be able to do the school run.”

The disclosure comes as ministers resort to a change in tactics to see Qatada deported to Jordan amid anger that the taxpayer will have to fund up to £10,000 a week to help protect Qatada from vigilante attacks once he is released.

James Brokenshire, the security minister, was due to fly to Jordan today in an urgent bid to gain necessary assurances that will allow the UK to deport Qatada.

He won bail after the European Court of Human Rights said he could not be returned to Jordan, where he has been convicted of terror offences in his absence, because he will not get a fair retrial amid concerns evidence to be used against him was obtained by torture.

The UK Government is seeking guarantees such evidence will not be used and he would face a fair trial.

Qatada, who the courts have described as a “dangerous risk”, is expected to be released from custody today after a judge granted him bail.

Despite strict bail conditions, he will have unrestricted access to his family and there was growing concern last night that he could now radicalise his teenage son.

His son Qatada Othman could complete an “apprenticeship in terror” once his father is released, an MP warned, after it emerged he has already mixed with extremists.

The 18-year-old, shared a platform with radicals to accuse the West of “waging war” on Muslims and attacked the UK for locking up his father without charge.

His security monitoring is likely to cost more than half a million pounds a year and critics said that was as much to protect him as to protect the public from him.

A YouGov poll yesterday found seven in ten people thought Qatada should be deported regardless of whether he can be guaranteed a fair trial.

Once Qatada is released he will be restricted on who he can meet, with the exception of his immediate family.

It has led to concerns over the influence he may now wield on his children.

It has emerged that last summer Qatada Othman spoke at an event outside Belmarsh high security prison in south east London.

He spoke in fluent Arabic and appeared to support “places of Jihad” around the world and said the UK was not his “abode or home, even though he family have lived off benefits here from almost two decades.

Other speakers at the event included Abu Izzadeen, also known as Omar Brooks, who was jailed for four and a half years in 2008 for inciting terrorism abroad and terrorist fund-raising,. He later had his sentence reduced by a year on appeal.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP, said: “Qatada Othman is only 18 but seems to be going through an apprenticeship in terror.

“It is a very fair bet that whatever happens to his father we will have similar problems with his son.

“The bail conditions make no provision for members of his family meaning young Qatada will be even further alienated by his father’s views.”

Peter Bone, another Conservative backbencher, added: “I am concerned about every aspect of this (Abu Qatada) case and he could radicalise his immediate family.”

Othman could not be contacted for a comment.

telegraph.co.uk

h/t to david44 for the heads up

That fuckin place is getting downright weird.

only 7% have sympathy for this monster in the uk
soon he will be on his way out and on his way back to jordan
imposing that prick as a neighbour is not on.

Originally Posted by spudge

the default is he goes free.

free with inverted commas.

he really is too dangerous.

Public feeling will lead to reaction.
The court wll lead to respect ECHR being diminished and demand for it to be abrogated.
I think this is unlikely.
However how can they know he is not using telecomms unles some of the 10k is spent on someone in his room.

Originally Posted by billy the kid

free with inverted commas. he really is too dangerous.

So dangerous that they can't prove it in a court of law?

22 hours a day curfew, no phone or intertubes and all of the security apparatus that the UK govt can bring to bear watching him..

How much of a danger can he really be? Why spend all that money?

If they are so sure he is a threat then convict him of something already. They managed to do it with the IRA, Welsh firebombers etc..

Prepared for a big laugh ?


Whose side are they on? BBC tells journalists to stop calling Qatada 'an extremist' - and showing pics of him looking fat

Read more: BBC tells journalists to avoid calling Abu Qatada an 'extremist' | Mail Online

Originally Posted by Wallalai

Prepared for a big laugh ?

Do you even bother to read the links you post?

Abu Qatada 'has not committed any crime' and we cannot blame European human rights for his release, Ken Clarke has said.

The Justice Secretary said it was a British judge who granted him bail, and it did not have 'anything to do with the European Court'.

Speaking at the Oldie magazine awards in central London, Mr Clarke told The Daily Telegraph: 'I don’t think it has anything to do with the European Court, it is a question of how long you can detain someone who is not accused of committing a crime and no body intends to charge him with anything.'

Qatada is wanted in Jordan to stand trial for his alleged involvement in a Millennium bomb plot.

Ken Clarke is the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice and somewhat of a conservative bigwig.

If this Qatada dickhead is indeed guilty of something then give him a trial, convict him and throw him in jail again. If his only crime is being fat and having a silly beard to be an attention whore then let's all just ignore him.

Ish. Time to update the ignore list again.

Originally Posted by spudge

More telegraph fear-pandering.

The guy might well be a scumbag POS who deserves to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail but if all the power of the UK government and justice system can't gather enough evidence to convict him then the default is he goes free.

That is the way it should be.

No thats not the way it should be. He is a piece of garbage that should be shot and pissed on. Thats what they would do in Thailand. Fuck your lame "justice" system

Originally Posted by spudge

Originally Posted by billy the kid

free with inverted commas. he really is too dangerous.

So dangerous that they can't prove it in a court of law?

Yeah yeah... What are you ? a Lawyer ?

Originally Posted by spudge

More telegraph fear-pandering.

The guy might well be a scumbag POS who deserves to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail but if all the power of the UK government and justice system can't gather enough evidence to convict him then the default is he goes free.

That is the way it should be.

WE don't need to convict or try him for anything. He's wanted in Jordan, we're not allowed to deport him to be trialed there.

Our highest courts have OK'd his deportation....if the ECHR werent such a bunch of fuckwits he'd be deported already.

Abu Qatada released under strict bail conditions

Abu Qatada returned to the streets of Britain on Monday night under some of the most draconian bail conditions ever imposed as ministers intensify diplomatic efforts to remove him permanently from the country.


Image 1 of 2
Abu Qatada leaves prison on Monday night Photo: REUTERS



Image 1 of 2
Abu Qatada leaving Long Lartin prison, Worcestershire Photo: David Hedges / SWNS.com

9:03PM GMT 13 Feb 2012

The extremist preacher was freed from Long Lartin top security jail but will be banned from holding lengthy conversations with anyone beyond his family and will not be allowed to leave his home for 22 hours a day — including going into his garden. He is prohibited from using a mobile phone, computer or the internet.

Officials hope that the measures will prove temporary as James Brokenshire, the security minister, prepares to fly to Jordan, where Qatada has been convicted in his absence of terrorism-related offences.

The European Court of Human Rights blocked Britain from deporting the 51-year-old Islamist cleric to Jordan after ruling that he might not receive a fair trial.

However, Qatada's own mother last night said the hate preacher should be sent back to Jordan.

Aisha Othman, 70, told the Daily Mail from her home in the Jordanian capital Amman: "He has been away too long. We want him home now.

"I don’t know why the British keep him. There is no good reason. I can’t see why they would want him."

The courts have described Qatada as a “dangerous risk”. He is specifically not allowed any contact with 27 people, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader.
Under the bail conditions, if he meets an acquaintance in a chance encounter, he “must, after any initial greeting, disengage himself from the situation”. Another condition stops him from leading prayers, giving lectures or preaching, other than to offer advice to his wife and children at his home.
David Cameron is under mounting pressure to find a way of deporting Qatada, even if it means defying the European court.
Jordan said on Monday it would “very soon” approach the court with new guarantees that Qatada would be treated fairly if he was deported. “[The law] mentions very expressly that any evidence obtained from torture or a threat of torture should not be admissible before the courts in Jordan,” said Ayman Odeh, the justice minister.
“We are confident that once we have the chance to make this statement through the diplomatic channels … [it] will be taken into consideration.”
Jordan passed an amendment banning evidence obtained from torture last September.
Home Office sources said Jordan’s new efforts should not be considered a “quick fix”, meaning Qatada could remain free in Britain for months.
The taxpayer will have to fund up to 60 police officers at a cost of about £10,000 a week to protect the extremist preacher from vigilante attacks.
Peter Bone, a senior Conservative backbencher, called for the Government to deport Qatada and “worry about the consequences of the European Court later”.
“Other countries have done this in the past: Italy did it, they put their national interests first,” he said. “They put the interests of saving the lives of men, women and children in Italy before the so-called rights of an extremist terrorist and nothing really happened to Italy. We should act in that way. Send him home.”
On Monday, a Downing Street spokesman did not rule out the possibility of a deportation in defiance of the European Court. “We are committed to removing him from the country,” he said. “We want to see him deported. We are looking at all the options for doing that.”
Banned Phones and 27 terrorist contacts
Abu Qatada's bail conditions are so strict they name 27 extremists and terrorists he is not allowed to meet, including the leader of al– Qaeda, Ayman al–Zawahiri.
When Qatada was last released on bail the list included Osama bin Laden but al–Zawahiri is the most serious terrorist named after the death of bin Laden last year.
Others named in the eight–page document are Rachid Ramda, the 1995 Paris Metro bombing mastermind, Abu Hamza, the firebrand cleric, and Yasser al–Sirri, who was convicted of terrorism charges in his absence in Egypt and who was photographed with Qatada when he was last on bail in 2008.
Babar Ahmad, who is accused by the US of raising funds for insurgents, is also on the list.
Other bail conditions include:
A 22–hour curfew during which Qatada cannot even enter his garden.
He must wear an electronic tag.
A ban on using a phone, computer or data storage devices and a ban on anyone bringing a computer into the house.
With the exception of his wife and children he cannot meet or communicate with anyone without prior approval.
He is banned from making any statement without the prior approval of the Home Secretary.
If he meets an acquaintance in a "genuinely chance situation" he "must, after any initial greeting, disengage himself from the situation (whether by explaining the terms of his bail order or by making an excuse)".
He is allowed out for one hour twice a day but cannot go beyond a tight boundary without approval.
He must surrender his passport and not possess any ticket that takes him farther than his prescribed boundary.
He is allowed only one approved bank account.

Abu Qatada released under strict bail conditions - Telegraph

Originally Posted by Bangyai

However, Qatada's own mother last night said the hate preacher should be sent back to Jordan.
Aisha Othman, 70, told the Daily Mail from her home in the Jordanian capital Amman: "He has been away too long. We want him home now.
"I don’t know why the British keep him. There is no good reason. I can’t see why they would want him."

Try to keep up Mrs Othman

Originally Posted by Bangyai

Jordan said on Monday it would “very soon” approach the court with new guarantees that Qatada would be treated fairly if he was deported. “[The law] mentions very expressly that any evidence obtained from torture or a threat of torture should not be admissible before the courts in Jordan,” said Ayman Odeh, the justice minister.

' No, since September , we just do it for a laugh ' he went on to say.

"In a victory for the Government, a court has ruled that the preacher’s hours under curfew will not allow him out at school opening and closing times."

It's a victory for the Brit government when they can persuade the courts not to allow some rat to take his kid to school. I'm thrilled.

FFS, someone just shoot the fucker!

Originally Posted by spudge

More telegraph fear-pandering.

The guy might well be a scumbag POS who deserves to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail but if all the power of the UK government and justice system can't gather enough evidence to convict him then the default is he goes free.

That is the way it should be.

Don't think that is really the issue.

The issue is that the Brits want to kick him out of the country, back to Jordan (to face trial there). He is being kicked out of UK not necesarily for any crime, just that his continued presence in UK is against the interests of National security. However, Human rights lawyers have snarled that in the courts, right up to the European Court, which has given a "ruling" that Britain can't deport him as to concerns for his safety in Jordan.


Part of the stupidity is that he then tried to leave and got banged up in jail for it (why people did not turn a blind eye is not clear).

back to the main thrust, the European court "ruling" has no real way of being enforced, just a "gentlemans agreement" that the various countries would abide by the decisions. personally, UK should say "thanks for that opinion - now fuck off" and put him (and he rest of his dependents) on a plane.

Originally Posted by nidhogg

UK should say "thanks for that opinion - now fuck off" and put him (and he rest of his dependents) on a plane

With enough fuel to get them half way across the English Channel.