Blunkett attacked over secret trials for terror suspects
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
(Filed: 03/02/2004)
Civil liberties groups and Muslim community leaders lined up yesterday to denounce plans from David Blunkett to conduct secret trials of suspected terrorists.
The Home Secretary found himself at the centre of renewed controversy after proposing legal changes that would make it easier to convict potential suicide bombers.
He said the threat from extremists was now so great that the burden of proof in criminal trials should be reduced from "beyond reasonable doubt" to "the balance of probabilities".
He also wants a debate over whether intelligence information against suspects should be given in camera to avoid compromising security.
Mr Blunkett's ideas - to be proposed formally in a Home Office paper later this month - are intended to address what the Government sees as a serious threat from Islamist fundamentalists.
Speaking in India, where he is on a six-day visit, he said "global suicide terrorism" meant it might now be necessary to adopt new court procedures. These could include keeping evidence secret from defendants and vetting defence counsel to ensure that they did not pass on sensitive information.
Mr Blunkett said: "We need to debate how we deal with these delicate issues of proportionality and human rights on the one hand and evidential base and the threshold of evidence on the other.
"That is quite a challenge because we are having to say that the nature of what people obtain through the security and intelligence route is different to the evidence gained through the policing route."
He added: "It needs to be presented in a way that doesn't allow disclosure by any of the parties involved which would destroy your security services."
Lady Kennedy, QC, a Labour peer, compared Mr Blunkett to Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe.
"He really is a shameless authoritarian," she said on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "We can be confident that many of his colleagues in the Cabinet, including particularly the Attorney General, will sit on this, because it really is an affront to the rule of law."
Lady Kennedy described the proposals as "a classic Blunkett tactic". She said: "You suggest all kinds of outrageous and awful things because then you get away with half of them."
Mark Littlewood, the campaigns director of Liberty, said: "Simply introducing more laws, greater powers and stiffer penalties will go a long way to undermining British justice and will not make our country any safer."
Michael Howard, the Tory leader, said: "You have to try and strike the balance between giving the British people the proper protection against terrorism and not depriving innocent people of their liberty."
However, David Winnick, a Labour member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said concerns over civil liberties should not blind people to the threat of terrorism.
He said: "If it is absolutely necessary to extend the powers that exist, then of course the House of Commons must listen carefully and make up its mind accordingly."
But Massoud Shadjareh, the chairman of the Islam Human Rights Commission, said: "This sort of legislation in Germany led to concentration camps."
