(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

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

Why did that report call him a "failed asylum seeker"? If he failed, he wouldn't still be here, right? ;o)

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Different can of worms entirely (and I should point out that the guy in Coventry is, as far as I know, here entirely legally).

I think we all know that the asylum system is a bit broken right now. The government is not very good at transporting people out of the country (even people who are willing to go...) when their applications are turned down - and when the people concerned have little money (and, in some cases, no passports) they're unlikely to leave until the government sorts that out...

[tals.livejournal.com]

Jesus H! *shakes head* Welcome to 1984 and then some. This kind of thing is only going to get more frequent. Who WILL guard the guardians...?

Too right.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

I wish I could shake the nasty (and probably inaccurate) thought that this happened partly because someone, somewhere couldn't believe that a Kurdish immigrant was actually a football fan... but it just keeps creeping back into my brain.

[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...