Human fucking rights again?

[Gob]

The leader of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell that plotted a bomb atrocity in Britain will not be deported after a tribunal ruled that his human rights would be breached if he were ill treated by Pakistan’s security services.

Abid Naseer, 24, was one of 12 men — ten of them Pakistanis on student visas — arrested last year during counter-terrorism raids in Manchester and Liverpool. A judge rejected his claims of innocence yesterday, describing him as “an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom”.

Mr Justice Mitting said that although it was “conducive to the public good that he should be deported” this was not possible because of the risk that he would suffer torture at the hands of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).

Police raided properties in northwest England last April after an intercepted e-mail sent by Mr Naseer to an al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan suggested that terrorists planned an attack within days. The raids were rushed forward after secret papers about Operation Pathway were accidentally made public when Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed in Downing Street holding the documents.He resigned, but Gordon Brown said the operation had foiled “a very big terrorist plot”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 129649.ece

This is just fucking insane! If this cunt planned to blow up Brits, why should we give a fuck what the Pakistani authorities do to him?

Set the fucker on fire, and then set him free in Pakistan..

[Andrew D]

If the Brits turn him over to the Pakistanis, knowing that there is a substantial risk that he will be tortured, the Brits thereby assume joint responsibility for his torture. How many Brits really want to make themselves torturers?

[The Hen]

Now this is an appropriate use of a Human Rights Act.

[drift mode ] I could bitch about the lengths the local ACT Human Rights Commissioner goes to to ensure that every single person (other than possibly law abiding citizens) has their 'human rights' guaranteed in such minutiae of detail. Even to the point of allowing them to commit further crimes and infringe others human rights as a result.

Tw@s [/drift mode]

[Gob]

If the Brits turn him over to the Pakistanis, knowing that there is a substantial risk that he will be tortured, the Brits thereby assume joint responsibility for his torture. How many Brits really want to make themselves torturers?

Nice try Andrew. I'd turn him over to the Pakistanis tomorrow if he's been proven to be a threat to kill me or mine.

If THEY choose to toture him, on THEIR conciences be it.

Simple solution to avoid being turned over to torturors, do not plan to kill innocent people.

[The Hen]

Gob - you can't send a person, no matter what they have done, into a situation where they will be tortured or killed.

You may as well just bloody do it yourself and be done with it.

We abide by certain standards, we also permit those standards to those who break our laws. Live with it.

[drift mode] But do not allow the Human Rights Act to be used as a reason for why people can post bills on public buildings. That would be an EXTREMELY ludicrous use of the Human Rights Act. [/ drift mode]

[Gob]

There is a 'risk" he "may" be tortured. He's willing to take the risk of killing and maiming British people randomly, I'm willing for him to take the risk of being tortured.

He's forfeited the right to live in the UK, he is not a citizen.

Fuck him and all like him. The more of them that die the better.

[Sue U]

Um, Gob, none of these guys have actually been convicted of anything, right? They haven't even been charged with plotting any terrorist crime, and their labeling as terrorists is based in large part on secret evidence presented in closed proceedings and not disclosed to the accused:

No explosives or bomb-making equipment were found and none of the 12 was charged with any terrorism offence, but the ten Pakistanis were detained pending appeals against the Home Office’s decision to deport them on the ground of national security.

***

Sarah Kellas and Gareth Peirce, solicitors for Mr Naseer and Mr Faraz, said in a statement that the tribunal’s decision was “the worst of all worlds” for their clients. “On the basis of secret evidence that it refuses to disclose to the students, the court tells the world that they are closely connected to an al-Qaeda plot to cause explosions. These young men have been branded publicly and thereby exposed to personal danger for the rest of their lives. It’s no way to conduct justice. If people have committed a crime, put them on trial.”

If these men have committed a crime in England, why shouldn't they be charged under English law, tried in an English court and, if convicted, serve sentences in an English prison?

[Big RR]

I know...I know. Because they wouldn't be convicted of anything based on that evidence?

[Andrew D]

The answers to such problems do become considerably easier to find if one presumes guilt rather than presuming innocence ....

[Gob]

A parliamentary inquiry was later held after The Times revealed that eight of them had enrolled as students at a bogus college set up as a front for a mass immigration fraud. Manchester College of Professional Studies, which had two classrooms and three teachers, claimed to have 50 students but had secretly enrolled 1,797 foreigners.

Reason enough to deport them..

Much of the case against him was heard in secret but the evidence in open court included meetings between the cell members and an exchange of coded e-mails with an al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan. They discussed girls that Mr Naseer claimed to have met while looking for a wife. The final e-mail on April 3 named his chosen bride and said that the wedding would take place between April 15 and 20.

MI5’s assessment, which the tribunal accepted after considering “a substantial volume of closed material”, was that each named woman was a different type of explosive. Their personalities — they were variously described as weak, difficult to convince, easy to befriend, crystal clear, fond of money and liable to let you down — were said to denote each explosive’s characteristics and availability. The wedding date revealed the timing of the attack. Mr Naseer claimed that these were innocent e-mails detailing his efforts to find a wife but Mr Justice Mitting said his explanation was “utterly implausible”.

More than enough reason...

[rubato]

The leader of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell that plotted a bomb atrocity in Britain will not be deported after a tribunal ruled that his human rights would be breached if he were ill treated by Pakistan’s security services.

Abid Naseer, 24, was one of 12 men — ten of them Pakistanis on student visas — arrested last year during counter-terrorism raids in Manchester and Liverpool. A judge rejected his claims of innocence yesterday, describing him as “an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom”.

Mr Justice Mitting said that although it was “conducive to the public good that he should be deported” this was not possible because of the risk that he would suffer torture at the hands of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI).

Police raided properties in northwest England last April after an intercepted e-mail sent by Mr Naseer to an al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan suggested that terrorists planned an attack within days. The raids were rushed forward after secret papers about Operation Pathway were accidentally made public when Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, of the Metropolitan Police, was photographed in Downing Street holding the documents.He resigned, but Gordon Brown said the operation had foiled “a very big terrorist plot”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 129649.ece

This is just fucking insane! If this cunt planned to blow up Brits, why should we give a fuck what the Pakistani authorities do to him?

Set the fucker on fire, and then set him free in Pakistan..

You might ask if "not letting him be tortured" is another way of saying "if we keep his ass here he definitely won't be let out of prison". It's a control thing.

That's what I would ask.

yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

Seems easier to just shoot him and be done with it.

[Big RR]

Maybe, after all they have all the secret information they need to secretly convict and secretly sentnence him. Dean Wormer, inventor of double secret probation, would be proud.

[Andrew D]

Much of the case against him was heard in secret but the evidence in open court included meetings between the cell members and an exchange of coded e-mails with an al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan. They discussed girls that Mr Naseer claimed to have met while looking for a wife. The final e-mail on April 3 named his chosen bride and said that the wedding would take place between April 15 and 20.

MI5’s assessment, which the tribunal accepted after considering “a substantial volume of closed material”, was that each named woman was a different type of explosive. Their personalities — they were variously described as weak, difficult to convince, easy to befriend, crystal clear, fond of money and liable to let you down — were said to denote each explosive’s characteristics and availability. The wedding date revealed the timing of the attack. Mr Naseer claimed that these were innocent e-mails detailing his efforts to find a wife but Mr Justice Mitting said his explanation was “utterly implausible”.

More than enough reason...

The quoted description is self-contradictory. It says that "the evidence in open court included ... an exchange of coded e-mails with an al-Qaeda associate in Pakistan." But the conclusion that the e-mails were in fact "coded" depends, as the quoted description says on "'a substantial volume of closed material'". So the evidence presented in open court was not sufficient to convict Naseer of anything based on those e-mails.

And that is the problem. Maybe Naseer really is a terrorist; I don't know. Nor does anyone else who has not been privy to the "closed material," assuming that such material exists at all. (And maybe the bogus-university thing, assuming that it is proved by evidence presented in open court rather than by some newspaper article, is enough reason to deport him; I don't know that either.)

But if he is to be deported on the ground of being a terrorist, the fact that he is a terrorist should be proved in open court. Otherwise, the government could arrest Gob or me or anyone else, accuse that person of terrorism, and ship that person off for torture in some foreign shithole country.

A big part of why we have courts is to prevent that sort of thing. If we jettison that liberty-protecting function of the courts, we might as well throw the whole of liberty overboard with it.

[Gob]

But if he is to be deported on the ground of being a terrorist, the fact that he is a terrorist should be proved in open court. Otherwise, the government could arrest Gob or me or anyone else, accuse that person of terrorism, and ship that person off for torture in some foreign shithole country.

Matters that may impinge on national security, or operational security, may have to be kept secret even in open court. There has to be some burden of trust in our elected governments at this level.

[Andrew D]

I agree that there are things which, for reasons of national security, should not be revealed in open court.

But I think that the proper course of action -- the course of action which strikes the proper balance between national security and individual liberty -- is to make the government choose: If keeping the evidence secret is more important than is prosecuting this individual, then the government keeps the information secret, and, therefore, the government cannot prosecute this individual. But if prosecuting this individual is more important than is keeping the evidence secret, then the government must produce the evidence in open court.

Letting the government have it both ways at once -- we need to keep the evidence secret, but we can prosecute this individual anyway -- is an open invitation to tyranny. How many of us, if faced with prosecution on the basis of secret evidence, would think that OK?

[Gob]

Which is why I'm glad you came to this forum Andrew, as I am glad that all the other legal and non legal brains did.

I know you are wrong, but I need to think of a coherent reason why you are wrong.

I'll Arnie.