Hindustan Times
Kasab vs Qatada: terrorists have human rights
The wrangling in Britain over the fate of the Jordanian-born extremist preacher Abu Qatada highlights the important debate on human rights versus national security that has a resonance with what is happening in India and other countries facing terrorism.
In India, an armed Ajmal Kasab was caught on CCTV footage with fellow-terrorists wreaking havoc on Mumbai on 26/11/2008. The evidence against him was incontrovertible, it was duly produced, he was charged and a Mumbai court convicted him. But, from his cell in Mumbai jail, Kasab has been able to challenge his death sentence and now awaits his trial in the Supreme Court.
A convicted terrorist, in other words, has been accorded his human rights and right to the due process of law by the Indian state, even in the face of a grave security challenge and unprecedented provocation.
On the surface, Abu Qatada’s situation is similar to that of Ajmal Kasab, but there are also important differences. This man surfaced in Britain in 1993 under a false passport and sought political asylum citing religious persecution and torture in Jordan. Jordanian authorities want him for a bomb plot and for inciting terrorism but he said the evidence had been extracted from him under torture.
He was, of course, granted political asylum – a decision that deserves scrutiny.
After 9/11, matters heated up for Abu Qatada. Police searching the Hamburg flat of 9/11 mastermind Mohamed Atta apparently found video recordings of sermons by Qatada. The British press now routinely describes him as Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe and as a man who inspired the 9/11 attacks. Snippets of evidence against him have been reported in the British press: in 2001, police found him in possession of £170,000 in cash, including £805 in an envelop marked ‘For the mujahedin in Chechnya.’
Qatada spent the next decade going in and out of British jail. He is out on bail now under the orders of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in distant Strasbourg, which agrees with his claim that he faces the threat of torture in Jordan. The European ruling has caused a politically explosive situation in Britain, and Cameron faces growing calls to ignore it.
So far so straight. The similarities with Kasab are that both men are/were lodged in a foreign jail and both are linked to global terrorism. The Indian taxpayer is paying for Kasab’s boarding and lodging in Mumbai. And the British taxpayer is paying for the entire array of benefits offered by the British welfare state to unemployed Qatada, his wife and children, including free housing.
The main difference is that Qatada has never been charged with any crime, despite a plethora of anti-terrorism laws in Britain. It’s a startling fact, especially given the fact that the government views him as a “significant threat” to the nation – a “highly dangerous individual” who is under British deportation orders. In fact, civil liberty groups in Britain claim that in 10 years in prison he has never been questioned about terrorism – never interrogated, even for a minute!
Apparently, British secret services fear that bringing charges against Qatada and trying him in court could compromise intelligence gathering. “Qatada has not only shared his views with fellow conspirators in sinister telephone conversations bugged by MI5 or the police. On the contrary, he has actually trumpeted them,” writes Richard Norton-Taylor, the security correspondent of The Guardian. But producing phone-tapped evidence in court is opposed by British intelligence agencies who don’t want their techniques exposed.
Norton-Taylor says that “far too much embarrassing information about MI5 and the Met police would come out in court.” The MI5 apparently viewed Qatada as “all mouth” when he was allowed into Britain and discounted warnings by a well-known Spanish anti-terrorist judge, Baltasar Garzon, as mere rhetoric. Later, realizing that Qatada’s utterances were potentially dangerous, “MI5 tried to approach him to try and persuade him to tone down his jihadist rulings, at least insofar as they were addressed to a potential audience here (in Britain).”
The government of David Cameron is now exploring whether he can be deported to Jordan in spite of the ECHR judgment. Two government ministers in the Home Office – the junior minister followed by the cabinet minister – have flown to Amman for talks. They want “watertight guarantees” that Qatada will not face torture or the threat of torture if he is deported to Jordan.
It’s interesting that London’s actions on Qatada are the direct opposite of what New Delhi is doing with Kasab. In other words, the British government appears to be trying to circumvent the due process of law despite the country’s professed adherence to liberal values.
And that’s where human rights come in. Western democracies love to preach the importance of human rights. But there appear to be limits, the limit being national security. But the logic of the rule of law is that if you are unable or unwilling to prove that a man is guilty of a crime then you have to set him free. If he is a foreigner, you may serve a deportation order on him, as Britain has done with Qatada, but he is entitled to – and will – make full use of the legal process to challenge your order, as Qatada has done with Britain.
If he is a terrorist, as everyone in Britain appears to be convinced, then you have to charge him with the crime – there are no two ways about it. He must then face the full might of the law of the land, just as Kasab does in India.
And then, if you like, you can try and secure a conviction that is long enough for the state to lock the man up and throw away the keys. Until then, for better or for worse, the fact remains that in democracies, even terrorists have human rights.
(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
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