PRISON PLANET.com          Copyright © 2002-2005 Alex Jones          All rights reserved.

Met chief wants phone-tap trials

BBC | Feb 05 2005

England's top police officer is calling for phone-tap evidence to be used in court cases involving terror suspects.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke has ruled it out, denying it would make it easier for terror suspects to be tried instead of being detained without charge.

But Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair told the Daily Telegraph it would make policing "much easier" and allow lawyers to test the evidence.

He also said an attempted al-Qaeda attack on London was "inevitable".

Sir Ian told the newspaper: "I have long been in favour of intercept evidence being used in court.

"In policing terms it would make my job much easier."

The commissioner, who took over from Sir John Stevens on Tuesday, said the move would help relations with the Muslim community.

'Nonsensical' laws?

And he said it would allow the courts to weigh up the evidence.

"At the moment, nobody can test it," he said.

Mark Leech, founder of the national ex-offenders charity Unlock, welcomed Sir Ian's comments.

"If the police have evidence that someone is involved in serious offences it makes no sense at all for that evidence to be withheld from a jury," he said.

Sir Ian's stance has also received support from human rights group Liberty.

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: "Judges rather than politicians should decide when to authorise phone tapping.

"However, if it is legitimate to eavesdrop on someone's private phone calls, it is nonsensical not to use relevant material in a criminal trial."

Those who oppose the use of such evidence fear that it could reveal the secret operational methods used by intelligence agents.

Opponents argue that phone tapping evidence is often weak as it relies heavily on a mole to explain what people in the conversation are talking about.

This, in turn, could also jeopardise the mole if he or she is still working under cover.

But Tory MP Damian Green said the home secretary was stuck in a "peculiar old fashioned mindset that the rest of the world had moved on from".

"Every other country in the world, barring Britain and Ireland, appears to allow this, and they are perfectly free systems, so I think we should as well," he told BBC News 24.

He added the Conservatives would move an amendment to the Serious and Organised Crime Bill on Monday to try to allow phone-tap evidence.

Under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 terror suspects can be held indefinitely without facing trial.

But the home secretary has announced a change in the law after Law Lords ruled the detentions illegal.

World 'grown darker'

Mr Clarke will replace indefinite detentions with "control orders" where suspects will be but put under house arrest and surveillance.

On the threat of terrorism, Sir Ian said the world had "grown darker" in recent years.

"It is inevitable that terrorists connected to al-Qaeda will attempt to carry out a terrorist atrocity in London," he added.

"I know that because they have. It is difficult to calculate whether it is inevitable that they will get through."

Sir Ian intends to ask for a further 5,000 officers to patrol London's streets.

 

 

E MAIL THIS PAGE