It's getting bad when your police state can't even operate correctly.
telegraph.co.uk
Seventh terror suspect flees control order
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:38am BST 22/06/2007
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The Government's system of control orders for monitoring terror suspects was further undermined after it emerged that yet another has disappeared.
Another setback for Mr Reid's Home Office
In a statement to Parliament, the police minister, Tony McNulty, said the unidentified man, understood to be an Iraqi, had not been seen since Monday night.
He had been on the control order since November 2005. He is the seventh of 17 men supposedly being monitored under the controversial system to go on the run.
The man is believed to have been living in the West Midlands.
The Home Office, which imposes control orders on the advice of the security service, refused to say whether he was one of six Iraqis arrested in 2005 in what was believed to be the final stages of a plot to explode car bombs in the UK.
The Home Secretary was forced by the courts to water down the conditions of their orders, which came close to house arrest.
Mr McNulty said the man who went missing this week had a tag, a 14-hour curfew, a requirement to remain within a restricted area, reside at a specified address and restrictions on finance and communications.
"They are the most stringent obligations we could impose in this individual's case," he said.
"He was previously subject to stricter controls but these had to be revised in light of last year's Court of Appeal judgment in this and other cases.
"None of the men was put on trial because of the sensitivity of the sources of intelligence against them."
Mr McNulty added: "Locating this individual is an operational matter for the police, and an active investigation is under way. "Control orders are not even our second - or third - best option for dealing with suspected terrorists. But under our existing laws they are as far as we can go.
"Unfortunately, within these limits, it is very difficult to prevent determined individuals from absconding."
Six other suspects have gone missing. Last month, Scotland Yard named Lamine Adam, 26, his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, after they failed to report to police.
The Adams' brother, Anthony Garcia, 25, was jailed for life in April for his part in the "fertiliser bomb" plot. The Government resorted to control orders when its attempts lock up suspects without trial was outlawed by the courts.
The shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said: "This is yet another example of how control orders, while doing much to undermine our rights and freedoms, are astonishingly ineffective at protecting our safety. House arrest is a poor substitute for prosecution."
The director of human rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said: "Control orders are simply unsafe, unjust, and we hope a new Government focused on consensus will be able to come up with a much sounder policy."
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, added: "This is yet another serious blow for the increasingly discredited system of control orders.
"At this rate, every single one of them will have suffered a breach within a matter of months." |
