(no subject)

[mrph]

Remember the ten anti-terror arrests a week or two back? The "plot to bomb Old Trafford" that the tabloids talked about?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3692543.stm

All ten have been released without charge, and the police are are quoted as saying "We have never said there was a plot against Old Trafford".

One of the men arrested lived not far from here - a few roads away, in Stoke Aldermoor. The Coventry Evening Telegraph spent three pages covering the story, with the usual 'I suppose we should have been suspicious' / 'we never liked him anyway...' style quotes from not-quite-neighbours.

I bet they won't devote another three pages to saying that he was never charged and that there are now calls for a police apology...

Comments

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

Mr Whatton [Assistant Chief Constable at Greater Manchester Police] added that anti-terror legislation meant police could only charge or release suspects: "We can't put people on bail as with criminal matters."

Umm. What about arresting and holding indefinitely without charge or trial? I thought they were managing to do that pretty well in other cases? And terrorism isn't a criminal matter? Eh? Well I guess officially counting it as a criminal matter implies certain pesky protections for the accused under the law, which they might find inconvenient...