London - A radical Muslim cleric held in Britain without
trial Thursday won 2,500 pounds (3,600 dollars) in compensation from
the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that his human rights
had been breached.
The financial - and psychological - legal victory for Abu Qatada,
a Palestinian-Jordanian cleric, came just a day after the British Law
Lords ruled that he could be deported to Jordan where he is wanted on
terrorism charges.
However, in response to Wednesday's ruling, lawyers for the 48-
year-old took the deportation case to the European Court of Human
Rights in Strasbourg, delaying government plans to remove him.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Thursday she was 'very
disappointed' with the compensation awarded to Qatada and 10 other
terrorism suspects held without trial in Britain under anti-terrorism
legislation adopted in the wake of the September 2001 attacks in the
United States.
The judges ruled that the British government had breached three
articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the
right to liberty, the right for lawfulness of detention to be decided
by a court and the right to compensation for unlawful detention.
But they rejected a fourth complaint, ruling that the detention of
Qatada did not amount to 'torture and inhuman or degrading
treatment.'
However, the ruling is an acute embarrassment for the British
government, which has long been been accused by civil rights
campaigners of flouting human rights over the detention of foreign
terrorism suspects without trial.
Qatada, who has lived in Britain since 1993, was first arrested in
2002, and has been held in prisons or under home curfew on and off
since then.
The Law Lords, Britain's highest appeal court, ruled Wednesday
that he could be deported to Jordan despite fears that he would not
receive a fair trial and could be subjected to torture.
The British government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOA)
with Jordan and other Middle Eastern and North African countries in
2005, in which governments pledged that terrorism suspects would not
be tortured.
The European Court also awarded pay-outs of between 1,500 and
3,400 pounds to 10 other suspects who were detained in Britain
following the US attacks on suspicion of having provided support for
extremists linked to al-Qaeda.
They include Abu Rideh, a Palestinian refugee who was detained in
December 2001 and Djamal Ajouaou, a Moroccan national, accused of
being connected to two other terror suspects.
Of the others, who cannot be named for legal reasons, six are
Algerian, one Tunisian and one French. They were held in prison
without charge until 2005 and subsequently released under so-called
control orders.
The British authorities have maintained that Qatada cannot be put
on trial in Britain because 'methods of intelligence gathering' could
be compromised in such a trial.
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