How terror laws could be changed

A wide-ranging extension of Britain's counter-terrorism laws has been mooted by Home Secretary David Blunkett.

Here are the main points of Mr Blunkett's latest proposals to combat al Qaida and other extremists:-

A new anti-terrorism act merging two existing pieces of legislation;

The act could bring pre-emptive elements already in use against foreign terror suspects into criminal courts for the first time for example, so that would-be suicide bombers could be tried and convicted before they strike;

Possibly lowering the burden of proof in terrorism cases from "beyond all reasonable doubt" to "on the balance of probabilities";

Allowing British terror suspects to be tried at least partly in secret;

Creating a pool of security-vetted judges to hear sensitive evidence which could damage national security;

Appointing security-vetted lawyers to defend terror suspects so intelligence from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ was not passed to extremist sympathisers.

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