UK police criticised over 'combat-style' anti-terror arrests
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
London, Nov 25, IRNA -- British police have been criticised for carrying out ‘combat style’ anti-terrorist arrests earlier this year and failing to consult specialist prosecutors properly ahead of high-profile operation in north-west England.
The government’s independent reviewer of terrorism laws Lord Carlile said the police did not seek advice on whether there was enough evidence to bring criminal charges against 12 students, who were detained in simultaneous raids in April.
All but one of the students arrested were Pakistani nationals. Despite being subsequently released without charge after being held for two weeks, the Pakistanis were handed over to the UK Border Agency for deportation.
In his report, Carlile still suggested that there was evidence to justify some of the arrests that were based on intelligence which police believed showed a terrorist attack was imminent.
But Mohammed Ayub, lawyer for some of the students, criticised the findings and called for an independent inquiry so “lessons can be learned as to how this investigation could have got it so terribly wrong and so that no other innocent person should have to suffer the ordeal that our clients have.”
“The personal cost to all those arrested has not been taken into account by anyone and the potential loss of confidence by the Muslim community in the police,” Ayub warned in a statement obtained by IRNA Wednesday.
“Our clients are neither extremists nor terrorists and their lives have been changed as a result of the arrests and the absence of any further evidence despite continued investigation by the police confirms their innocence,” he said.
The lawyer said that Carlile failed to criticise the original reason for the arrests that was based on flawed intelligence and did not mention no evidence has been forthcoming from the ongoing police investigation.
There was also the apparent contradiction in claiming that there was “a sound basis for carrying out arrests” while questioning “whether the material available in this case would have enabled them to obtain what are called Warrants of Further Detention”.
The high-profile arrests was seen drawing parallels with the bungled 2006 anti-terror police raid on the house of two Muslim brothers in Forest Gate in east London, which led to one of them being shot and no one ever charged.
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End News / IRNA / News Code 811032
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