LONDON, Oct 17: British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday blamed judges for watering down security laws after media reports two terrorism suspects had gone on the run.
One of the two escapees, accused of wanting to go to Iraq to fight, went missing two weeks ago after escaping through a window at a London mental health unit. The other disappeared some months earlier.
The revelations threw the spotlight on Mr Blair’s controversial anti-terrorism laws introduced after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, many of which have fallen foul of Britain’s courts where they have been ruled illegal for infringing human rights.
At his monthly press conference on Tuesday, Mr Blair reopened a simmering feud with the judiciary which he accuses of putting the rights of terrorism suspects above the concerns of fellow Britons.
“We, of course, wanted far tougher laws against terrorism. We were prevented by opposition in parliament and then by the courts in ensuring that was done,” he told reporters when questioned about the missing suspects.
The row has grown more intense since four British militants killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London’s transport system last July.
So-called control orders were rushed through parliament under last year’s Prevention of Terrorism Act after judges threw out emergency post-Sept 11 powers which allowed the police to jail foreign terrorism suspects indefinitely. The measures allow the government to limit suspects’ movements which often amounts to virtual house arrest.
They are applied to terrorism suspects that Britain is unable to deport due to concerns about possible mistreatment in their homeland or cannot put on trial because there is not enough admissible evidence to use in British courts.
However, in June the High Court ruled these powers broke the European Convention of Human Rights because suspects were deprived of their liberty without a trial.—Reuters
