The real threat of terrorism

HE loved football, studied hard and was popular with his classmates; a devout Muslim who hoped to become an Islamic priest. And yesterday Saajid Badat became the highest profile success of the post-9/11 war on terrorism in Britain.

But by admitting plotting to blow up an aeroplane on its way to the US, before backing out just days before he was due to carry out his mission, Badat ensured his membership of an exclusive club. Out of around 500 people arrested under anti-terrorism laws introduced in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Centre, just 75 have been charged. Of those, Badat is the only one so far convicted of a terrorism offence.

Now the Government is attempting to widen the scope of its anti-terror legislation. Amid chaotic scenes in the House of Commons yesterday, with MPs complaining bitterly at the lack of time they were given to scrutinise the proposals, the Government put forward a series of measures aimed at curbing the activities of suspected terrorists.

Most controversial are the so-called "control orders", which range from tagging suspects to placing them under house arrest. But it is not so much the orders themselves which have come in for criticism; it is that, for the first time, a British citizen can be deprived of their liberty not by the courts, but by politicians.

The catalyst for the proposals is the House of Lords ruling in December that the detention of nine people, the majority of them at Belmarsh Prison in south London, breached human rights legislation, in that they had fallen foul of legislation which applied to foreign-born suspects and not to British citizens.

'The House of Lords said it couldn't strike down the legislation, that was a matter for Parliament, and the Government's answer is they will not discriminate between home-grown terrorists and terrorists who are foreigners," says Kevin Kerrigan, principal lecturer in law at Northumbria University's law school.

"The wider answer is to have a mechanism which does not solely involve being in prison, and includes house arrest.

"This is a precedent in UK law: we have never had a position before where somebody could be subject to an order, including their detention, on a permanent basis because of a ministerial decision. It is a novel power that the Government is proposing."

The Government has proposed giving judges the power to quash such orders, although not to make them, but there is concern over the range of people who could be subject to the new controls, Mr Kerrigan says.

"It is not yet clear how the Government will limit it because the definition of terrorism is extremely broad," he says. "It includes political activity, industrial activity and it could even include environmental activists, animal rights activists and trade unionists, if their activity could be seen as a threat to the state.

"We're not just thinking of people who are planting bombs or flying planes into buildings: we're looking at a much broader spectrum of potential targets."

The other principal concern about the legislation centres on the idea of reasonable suspicion. Under the new proposals, somebody could be detained in their own home indefinitely because of suspicions the Government has, but is not willing to submit to a court. The absence of a clear statement on what would be considered sufficient proof to count as reasonable suspicion has done nothing to quell anxieties.

An alternative would be to test the suspicions in court, but this would potentially involve using telephone intercept evidence or evidence from members of the security services being heard in court, a path the Government has been reluctant to pursue.

"The reason the Government has given for not having it is they think this intercept evidence alone would not be enough to secure convictions, but if it couldn't secure convictions, what else is there that the Government wants to hide which could provide evidence in a criminal trial?," asks Mr Kerrigan.

"The Government is not willing to go down the line of having this intercept evidence in court, but it is willing to go down an unprecedented control order approach, where the state says certain individuals can be locked up on the basis of suspicion that will not be tested in court."

Despite concerns at the legislation among lawyers, it seems the public has no such qualms. A poll in the Daily Telegraph yesterday suggested that 75 per cent of people thought it was sometimes necessary to take action against people who had not committed an offence but have been found by the intelligence services to have been involved in terrorism.

Stoking public anxiety over terrorism, the Prime Minister yesterday said "several hundred" people in the UK are now plotting terrorist activity. But even if this were true, the evidence is that anti-terrorism laws will have little effect, argues Mr Kerrigan.

"Most prevention of terrorism laws are not effective in stopping terrorism. Right through the major period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there were extensive laws in place to allow special procedures to be adopted for terrorists," he says.

"But no-one has ever suggested that the prevention of terrorism laws actually prevent terrorism. The things that are effective are good intelligence and breaking up terrorist networks."

If prevention of terrorism laws have little to do with preventing terrorism, it doesn't mean they don't have their uses.

"It is difficult to know what the real level of threat is, but there is always a fear that governments will use terrorist threats to develop laws that would not be acceptable in any other time," Mr Kerrigan says.

"It could be in the interests of the Government to ratchet up the fear of terrorism in order to push through proposals like ID cards and control orders.

"Governments most want to be in control of things: the more in control over things it is, the better it is for the government's future. Governments like to have power and there is a genuine issue regarding whether governments might seek to bolster powers for the state using terrorism as a smoke screen."

He says the Government has yet to produce any evidence that its proposals will be effective in preventing terrorism. But there is reason to believe these laws will end up not just applying to terrorists.

"There is a history of the state passing laws to deal with terrorism and then making these laws part of our normal everyday life," he says.

"The right to silence was first taken away in respect of terrorist offences, and then it became applicable to other offences; the removal of a jury trial was first applicable in Northern Ireland, and the Government now wishes to remove jury trials for fraud and cases where there is a risk of jury intimidation.

"You can start to have laws that are initially extraordinary and then they become normalised and are used for a wide range of potential offences."

If suspected terrorists can be detained in their own homes, then the next stage could be suspected paeophiles, suspected drug dealers, or suspected bank robbers, with no requirement for the accused to have their guilt tested in court.

"The state is able to circumvent the normal criminal process in order to achieve what seems to be a laudable aim, but in doing so undermines the rule of law," Mr Kerrigan adds. "The Government wants to do things outside the scope of the normal civil and criminal process."