PM right to deport extremists says watchdog
Prime minister Tony Blair is right to deport foreign Islamic extremists, the independent watchdog on Britain’s anti-terror measures has said.
Organisations such as Liberty have condemned agreements guaranteeing the safety of extremists returned to their home nations and claimed that the countries concerned cannot be trusted to uphold the treaties.
But Lord Carlile QC, the Liberal Democrat peer appointed to independently review the government’s anti-terror laws, said that was a “counsel of despair”.
“The government is right to try and reach bylateral agreements with other countries to ensure that people who are present and whose presence is not conducive to the public good can be removed,” Lord Carlile told BBC News 24.
Human rights laws prevent the government from returning extremists to their home countries if they face risk of torture or death there.
But in a bid to overcome the restriction, ministers are now working to secure memorandums of understanding with a series of countries over the treatment of ten radicals that the government wishes to deport.
The prime minister announced the first memorandum of understanding with Jordan before leaving for his summer break, but the government is likely to face lengthy legal battles while the agreements are challenged in the courts.
Lord Carlisle told the BBC that other countries had successfully made bilateral agreements work, including France, which had reached an understanding with Algeria about the return of extremists who posed a threat to the public good.
“I know of no evidence of those people having been tortured in Algeria that appears to hold good,” said Lord Carlisle, adding: “It could hold good with the United Kingdom.”
Despite backing the government’s stance on the deportation of extremists, Lord Carlisle warned that proposed laws to force judges to give more weight to national security issues in relevant cases amounted to “teaching your grandmother to suck eggs”.
“The judges do have in mind considerations of national security,” the peer said.
“Judges do their best to balance the decisions of ministers with human rights.”
