Government 'plans to deport terror suspects'

Last updated at 09:48 19 January 2005


Britain said today that it plans to deport some foreign terror suspects to their home countries after senior judges ruled the government's decision to detain them without trial was unlawful.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the Times newspaper Britain was seeking deals with several North African countries to allow suspects to be deported without risk of being tortured or sentenced to death in their home nations.

"I think we should be prosecuting much more energetically our ability to deport the individuals concerned to the countries from which they come, in all these particularly cases from North Africa. We are actively pursuing that," said Clarke.

Britain's Law Lords ruled last month against the indefinite detention of several men under legislation introduced after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The men, including a Syrian cleric accused of being the spiritual inspiration for the leading September 11 attacker, were not given detailed reasons for detention or entitled to see the evidence against them. Some have been held for three years.

The deportation of suspects will form part of Clarke's response to the Law Lords' judgment, but the minister said it would not be the whole answer to the ruling.

"I do not think the solution to the Law Lords' judgment for this government is in deportations, but they will help. There are other strands that we have to do," he said.

Clarke said the government was considering other measures, including the use of evidence from telephone tapping, to make it easier to convict in terror cases.

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