Thread: Abu Qatada

Abu Qatada has been released on bail after six years in prison without trial, as far as anyone seems to be aware he has not committed any crime, if he had he would surely be charged with it. He was given bail by a British judge with bail conditions which include 22 hours a day house arrest at a given location and Mi5 monitoring all his visitors.

We are also being told he is a 'terrorist', 'an extreme danger to the British public' and that his freedom is due to interference from European courts. That last is certainly not true, the European court said we couldn't send hin to be tortured or put on trial in a trial that depended on evidence obtained by torture, and we are signed up to international treaties agreeing that, but it was a British judge that freed him. If he is a terrorist within the terms of the British legal system why has he not been put on trial in the last six years? The evidence must be pretty thin. If MI5 know where he is, monitor his visitors, and I have no doubt also monitor his communications, if he wears an electronic tag so they know where he is at all times and they only let him go out two hours a day it is difficult to see how he can be a grave danger to the British public. If he is I feel MI5 should face questions about their competence.

Maybe I am missing something, but on the face of it he appears to have been imprisoned for his beliefs for the last six years, what happened to fair trials and no imprisonment without trial, or are rag head heathens not included in that? If that is the case I am no more enamoured of the system than I expect he is.

Well, from what I can read it looks like there's a lot of circumstantial evidence for his ties available. He's been tried and convicted in Jordan, and the big contention is his deportation from the UK. He was on bail, but violated the terms so he was sent back to prison to await the outcome of the Article 6 review.

I'm not opposed to the idea that he was held in custody, or at least very restricted bail while they await the outcome of the proceedings. He's already left previous countries on forged documents, and has broken conditions of his bail while in England. This isn't about his beliefs (as far as England is concerned), so much as ensuring he is handled properly.

The alternative would have been to straight up hand him over to Jordan, and I think we can all agree his rights wouldn't have been very well protected in that scenario.

Sources to sway me in either direction greatly appreciated, I'm just trying to catch up on this right now. It didn't get a lot of press in North America over the last decade.

I should obviously be a bit more circumspect about what I read in tabloid papers I pick up. The quotes from the Home secretary describing him as a 'terrorist' and from the court describing him as 'a danger to the British Public' didn't help when he has been convicted of nothing here and doubts are cast on the value of testimony leading to his Jordanian conviction.

Ya, this is one of those cases where you just dream of being able to see everything that's happened before/behind closed doors. This case seems to have the vagueness and buzzwords that newspapers, especially tabloids, drool over.

Originally Posted by Olly Buckle

Maybe I am missing something, but on the face of it he appears to have been imprisoned for his beliefs for the last six years, what happened to fair trials and no imprisonment without trial, or are rag head heathens not included in that? If that is the case I am no more enamoured of the system than I expect he is.

Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, has been described in both Spanish and British courts as a leading al-Qaida figure in Europe. He is reported to have had close ties to the late Osama bin Laden. Abu Qatada arrived in Britain in 1993 and was detained in 2002 under anti-terrorism laws that at the time allowed suspected terrorists to be jailed without charge. He has never been charged with a crime in Britain, although authorities have accused him of advising militants and raising money for terrorist attacks. He has been convicted in absentia there of terrorist offenses related to two alleged bomb plots in 1999 and 2000, and would face a retrial there if deported from Britain.

Abu Qatada, radical preacher with alleged al-Qaida ties, being freed from British jail - The Washington Post

The quotes from the Home secretary describing him as a 'terrorist' and from the court describing him as 'a danger to the British Public' didn't help when he has been convicted of nothing here and doubts are cast on the value of testimony leading to his Jordanian conviction.

So why not just deport him, let him face the charges against him and either remove the doubts or suffer the consequences? I feel that British intelligence is pretty good, there is a reason they don't want this man roaming around free. Deport him to face the charges and be done with it.

They can't just deport him because of EU law. That's why they're holding him in custody: they can't outright get rid of him until the court decisions are finalized, but they don't want him roaming the streets free.

First off Ditch it doesn't say who described him as that in court, the prosecution could describe you that way and a jury still find you not guilty, similarly "The authorities" (they don't say which) have accused him, but he has not been charged, and I think if there was enough evidence he would have been. The reason he was not deported to Jordan is because there is a good probability that torture would be used, on him and those giving evidence against him, which means he would not get a fair trial. I am rather proud of my country for refusing to subscribe to such things on the whole, it strikes me as the basis of what I call "civilised".

I'm sure they have their reasons, a lot of times "knowing" and "proving" are two different things. I don't see British intelligence being too far off of the mark on this guy.

He has committed lots of crimes, but the Labour government thought it would be more efficient in terms of time & money to just deport him. Being dimwits and unaware of The Law of Consequences, they forgot that they had swallowed the European Rights Law wholesale, and wasted a lot of time and money trying to find a way round a law they themselves introduced to the UK. Mind you, even if they had charged him with the various race hate/incitement to violence crimes he would still have stayed, after all, he supports Arsenal and therefore deserves our sympathy...

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

after all, he supports Arsenal and therefore deserves our sympathy...

He's also a supporter of the Bombay Knights, admires the Rocket Man, and would like to see Warsaw in Autumn.

Originally Posted by Ditch

I'm sure they have their reasons, a lot of times "knowing" and "proving" are two different things. I don't see British intelligence being too far off of the mark on this guy.

You can't just take six years out of a guy's life and say "I'm sure they have their reasons", okay so what are they? The difference between knowing and proving is the difference between a policeman, whose job it is to believe people guilty and bring them to court, and a jury whose job it is to decide if he is right beyond reasonable doubt.

I admit I would probably not like this guy at all and find most of his ideas abhorrent, but that he's a fundamentalist Muslim in his belief should not be held to his detriment in law, any more than being black was forty years ago or being Jewish fifty years ago, if his actions are criminal, bring him into a court of law and prove it, and if he's as headstrong and stupid as is made out he will probably make that easy by breaching bail conditions.

I had no idea he was an Arsenal supporter, where's a lamp post, get a rope.

He has been convicted in absentia there of terrorist offenses related to two alleged bomb plots in 1999 and 2000, and would face a retrial there if deported from Britain.

Bloggsworth. I still don't see why they can't charge him with those crimes if they have the evidence, we have no statute of limitations and it would be a much more convincing way of holding him.

Apparenty not everyone agrees,

Joel Bennathan QC, a leading defence barrister in counter-terrorism cases, said the preacher's case was similar to others where there had been allegations but no prosecution or conviction.

He said: "Any 'jihadi' who says anything that could conceivably be seen as encouraging violence tends to get arrested and charged with incitement to murder, racial or religious hatred.

"It is a fair guess that Abu Qatada has not done or said anything dangerous for years, if ever he did."

And I have just discovered the court in which he was accused was a Spanish one, it would be good to see evidence produced in an English court for a jury to decide on. That is the way we are supposed to do it if his case has not already been so prejudiced by all these unsupported allegations he can't get a fair trial here either