Most control orders likely to be revoked after terror suspect freed

Desire not to disclose 'secret evidence' means government expected to 
release detainees despite security concerns

Alan Travis, home affairs editor 
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 September 2009 12.35 BST 
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/07/control-orders-terror-
suspects-revoke
http://snurl.com/rnjvl


Most of the remaining control orders imposed on terror suspects are expected 
to be revoked following the decision by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to 
free a man with Libyan and British nationality after three years under 
virtual house arrest.

The control order imposed on the man, known only as AF, was withdrawn last 
week as his lawyers prepared for a court hearing at which Johnson would have 
been forced to disclose the secret intelligence case against him.

The decision followed a landmark law lords ruling in June that it was 
unlawful to use "secret evidence" to place restrictions, including a 16-hour 
curfew, on terror suspects who had never been charged or tried in open 
court.

The unanimous ruling by nine judges, led by the senior law lord, Lord 
Phillips of Worth Matravers, opened the way for the 20 suspects on control 
orders to launch fresh legal challenges demanding to know the nature of the 
allegations against them.

After the ruling it was expected that the security services would decide not 
to disclose the nature of the secret cases against many of the suspects to 
protect their intelligence sources and instead simply allow the control 
orders to lapse.

AF was the first suspect to launch a fresh legal challenge. When the home 
secretary told the man's lawyers last week that the order was being revoked 
he did not give any reason for the decision.

It is thought that the "open case" against AF is the least detailed of those 
under control orders, but the Home Office is expected to allow most of the 
remaining 19 to lapse over the coming months.

The government has so far failed to come up with any legally viable 
alternatives to the control order regime and faces the prospect of having to 
release suspects despite believing they pose a threat to national security.

AF's solicitor, Carl Richmond, told the Times that the man, who was confined 
to his home for up to 16 hours a day, "feels numb about it all, almost 
disbelief".

"The letter came out of the blue with no warning," Richmond said.

"AF has always insisted he has done nothing wrong. Clearly any evidence was 
such that the home secretary felt unable to disclose it. But we would argue 
that it was not material and could not be relied upon in any case."

Richmond will now seek to have the order formally quashed at the high court 
in a hearing next month.

The "open case" against AF includes allegations that he was linked to an 
anti-Gaddafi Islamist organisation, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. He 
was born in 1981 and spent his childhood in Libya with his father and 
sister, while his mother returned to Britain. She is the landlady of a 
Yorkshire pub.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the department could not comment on 
individual cases: "In June 2009 the House of Lords ruled that individuals 
subject to control orders must be given sufficient disclosure about the case 
against them to enable them to give effective instructions to their legal 
representatives. The government is considering the impact of the judgment 
for control orders."

She said that where the disclosure required by the court could not be made 
for the protection of the public interest, the Home Office might be forced 
to revoke the control order, even though the government considered it 
necessary to protect the public from a risk of terrorism: "In such 
circumstances, we will take all steps necessary to protect the public. When 
dealing with suspected terrorists, prosecution is, and will continue to be, 
our preferred approach.

"Where we cannot prosecute, and the individual concerned is a foreign 
national, we look to detain and then deport them. For those we cannot either 
prosecute or deport, control orders are the best available disruptive tool 
for managing the risk they pose."

But Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil liberties group Liberty, said the entire 
regime should be abandoned: "Home secretaries come and go but control orders 
remain the embarrassing legacy of Britain's war on terror," she told the 
Guardian today.

"Whilst some people have been driven quite mad by years of punishment 
without trial, suspects are allowed to wander through densely populated 
public spaces and many have disappeared. Those responsible for this policy 
should be thoroughly ashamed for creating so much injustice for so little 
security in return."

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