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Terror Suspects Return To UK
The angle British newspapers take on the imminent return of four terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay tells you a lot about each paper's philosophy. The Independent, for example, screams "1000 Days of Hell" - a reference to the time one of the prisoners has spent in Camp X-Ray since his arrest in Afghanistan.
The Guardian,typically, calls in the social workers, warning that the men may need "extensive counselling at least" for many years after their release.
However, The Times, not to mention the British authorities, expect that the returned prisoners may need something rather more than psychiatric care when they are released: 24-hour police surveillance.
Although the Guardian reports that a solicitor for two of the men demands that they should be treated as "torture victims" rather than terror suspects, security forces take a sterner view. The Times reports that the men are unlikely to face trial in the UK, despite US accusations that they attended terrorist camps, volunteered on suicide missions and pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
The report adds that British intelligence service MI5 has compiled substantial dossiers on the men following interrogation in Camp X-Ray. However, this evidence is not admissible in British courts as the men had no legal representation and had not been cautioned when the interviews took place. The government's only alternative, it seems, is to keep the men under round-the-clock surveillance. Indeed, Britain's foreign secretary Jack Straw has admitted that one of the conditions of the mens release was that their activities would be monitored "very closely."
A similar situation arose last year, when the first batch of British terror suspects were released by the US. We reported then that surveillance could cost the taxpayer around £1 million per man annually.
The Times' leader asks some tough questions. It will be fascinating, the paper says, to hear their explanations of what took them to Afghanistan, "which was not a popular tourist destination at the time," it adds, dryly.
The long wait for release was not vindictive, the Times continues: "It is the result of an entirely legitimate quandary, by no means restricted to the US, over what limits to a terror suspect’s rights are reasonable in the changed world bequeathed by the September 11 atrocities. Those attacks rendered the machinery of Western justice little short of obsolete."
Indeed, it contrasts the probable release of the four with France's treatment of its returned terror suspects: Four jihadis were returned to France last July and promptly whisked away to up to three years detention and interrogation under France's robust anti-terror laws. Moreover, the Times adds, the French public has not demanded any trials for the men. The French public, however, has not been subjected to a campaign to secure the suspects' release courtesy of France's cultural, media and human rights industry.
Then there is the thorny problem of recidivism. One Danish returnee, on securing his freedom, advised the US authorities that they could use his agreement not to get involved in terrorist activities "as toilet paper." The Times notes what it calls "credible reports" of other former Guantanamo inmates who went back to terror immediately after their release, heading to Pakistan where they were involved in the kidnap of Chinese aid workers.
The Times concludes that Britain's updated anti-terror laws are up to dealing with any potential threat the suspects may cause. New intelligence may be used and some cases may be held in camera. Terrorist ringleaders can now be convicted on what seem like technical grounds.
Let's hope so. If the British government summons the nerve to try these men in the face of the high-profile campaign demanding their release, the hearings will also be among the first trials of the nation's new anti-terror laws. The public needs to be convinced that its rights - not just the rights of men arrested in al-Qaeda dominated Afghanistan - are being protected.
