UK court rules against govt on terror suspects

Britain's top court delivered a severe jolt to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s post-September 11 security policies on Thursday, by ruling a...

Britain’s top court delivered a severe jolt to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s post-September 11 security policies on Thursday, by ruling against the detention of nine foreign terrorism suspects without trial.

The British government said it would send the controversial law under which the Muslim men are held back to Parliament. But it refused to release the nine — one of whom is accused of inspiring the September 11 US attacks — for security reasons.

The Law Lord judges ruled 8-1 in favour of the men whose imprisonment under draconian anti-terror laws, some for as long as three years, has become a cause celebre for rights activists who call their predicament ‘‘Britain’s Guantanamo Bay’’.

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‘‘Indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial is anathema in any country which observes the rule of law,’’ said one of the judges, Lord Donald Nicholls.

Among the inmates is Syrian cleric Abu Qatada, accused of being the spiritual inspiration for the lead 9/11 attacker. Qatada is also suspected of funding and inspiring top Al Qaeda figures and other militants in West Asia, North Africa, Afghanistan and Chechnya, from his base in London.

The ruling was a setback for the government, which argues such measures are necessary for the wider good, and opted out of the EU human rights’ charter to enact them.

It came hours after Home Secretary David Blunkett, architect of UK anti-terrorism policies, resigned amid allegations he abused his office to help a lover. —Reuters