Plan for terror suspects is &#39;bungled&#39;

Home secretary Theresa May accused of neglecting national security with proposal to revive relocation bans in terror bill

The government has been accused of bungling national security policy after announcing plans for the "internal exile" of terrorism suspects in the event of an emergency.

Civil liberties groups said the new powers were restrictions that ministers had said they would scrap for breaching human rights. Labour claimed the policy was now a mess and that ministers were "putting political deals and fudges ahead of national security".

In January the government replaced control orders ? which were being used against suspects who had not been charged ? with terrorism prevention and investigation measures (Tpims), which cut the length of house arrest and scrapped internal relocation orders.

However, the government has now published draft emergency powers reintroducing internal relocation. The move will allow Theresa May, the home secretary, to ban alleged suspects from living in certain areas in "exceptional circumstances".

Labour sources said this was political expediency because of the amendment reintroducing "internal relocation orders" to next week's terrorism bill, which would have attracted enough Tory rebels to defeat the government, already vulnerable on law and order.

The plans are attracting criticism from some of the government's own backers.

The Tory MP David Davis said: "This seems to be at least as ill thought out as control orders, if not more so."

Davis said the point of internal relocation orders had been preventative, and so introducing them after the fact would be ineffective. "It must be preventative. How can they be preventative if they can only be passed after the event?"

The government said it had always said it might announce such measures. But Davis said: "The impression we had was [that] one of the important changes, from control orders to Tpims, was losing internal exile."

Government sources insisted they had intended that an emergency provision be available but with much tougher safeguards than under Labour's control-order regime. They did accept that MI5 and the police wanted the powers, those groups believing that, without them, they would lose the capability of keeping the public safe. Of 12 people under control orders now, nine were subject to "internal relocation".

The draft powers would also allow the home secretary to restrict suspects' work, study, and with whom they associate.

According to the draft emergency legislation the term work "includes any business or occupation (whether paid or unpaid); studies include any course of education or training".

The rules allow curbs on finances, limits on communications, such as via mobiles and computers, and curfews of up to 16 hours a day.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, attacked the government for being too soft on law and order, and for putting the need to hold together the coalition ahead of the needs of national security: "What the government is doing is irresponsible, incompetent and potentially dangerous ? It does not give the police or security services what they need to keep communities safe, especially during Olympic year when the capital may need extra protection. The home secretary is putting political deals and fudges ahead of national security."

Senior Liberal Democrat sources in government insisted the new measures were still less draconian than control orders, and did not represent a U-turn on pre-election promises to take greater account of civil liberties. "This would be proposed following a serious national security incident, such as multiple attacks, such as on 7 July [2005], and not because we had heard a bit of chatter. Even then it has to be debated in parliament and voted on."

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "While politicians tinker with the deckchairs on the Titanic, community punishments without charge remain unsafe and unfair. You can call them control orders, Tpims, or whatever you like, but they still allow dangerous terrorists to live amongst us whilst innocent people are punished forever with no opportunity to stand trial and clear their name. Ten years into the 'war on terror', have we really learned so little?"

Control orders were used against terrorism suspects who could not be prosecuted, through there being insufficient admissible evidence, or because they could not be deported from the UK.

After announcing the scrapping of internal relocation in January, the home secretary went to court, four months later, to defend such an order she made in February, that was taken out against a suspect.

The man known only as CD, was a British-Nigerian terror suspect whom MI5 said was a leading figure in a "close group of Islamic extremists in north London".

The order banned him from living in London. Counter-terrorism officials claimed he had met fellow plotters to develop plans, which were thought to be a gun attack on multiple targets in the UK.

Mr Justice Owen, sitting in London, ruled that the restrictions imposed on CD's freedom, including the decision to relocate him from London to a Midlands city, were a "necessary and proportionate measure for the protection of the public from the risk presented by CD and his associates".

Of the draft emergency legislation, a Home Office spokesperson said: "National security is the primary duty of government and we will not put the public at risk. Our absolute priority is to prosecute and convict suspected terrorists in open court. The Tpim system will provide effective powers for dealing with the risk posed by individuals we can neither prosecute nor deport.

"We always said there may be exceptional circumstances where it could be necessary to seek parliamentary approval for additional restrictive measures."

Vikram Dodd

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