UK releases 2nd al Qaeda leader

Times:

Secret negotiations have taken place to arrange the release from a British jail of one of al-Qaeda’s most important operatives in Europe, The Times has learnt.

The prisoner, who can be identified only as U, is expected to be released from the high-security wing at Long Lartin jail next week.

Appeal Court judges ruled in April that the man, a 45-year-old Algerian veteran of al-Qaeda’s Afghan training camps, should be freed on bail. But discussions between security agencies and U’s lawyers became deadlocked over the conditions restricting his movements and whom he can meet when he leaves prison.

The authorities are understood to have sought bail terms more stringent than the 22-hour curfew imposed on the radical cleric Abu Qatada when he was freed last week. These conditions would require U to spend all his time indoors.

Security agencies blocked requests for U to live in London claiming that he has extensive contacts among extremist Islamist groups there. They also objected to an address in Brighton. U will be required to wear an electronic tag, subjected to round-the-clock monitoring and forbidden to use the internet or a mobile phone.

When the agreement is finalised the details will be passed to a judge who can release U from the prison in Worcestershire without any further court hearing. The Home Office refused to comment on the situation beyond saying it was seeking “the strictest bail conditions” possible.

While Abu Qatada is a preacher whose role in the al-Qaeda network is to justify and encourage jihad, U is alleged to be a terrorist leader who recruited, trained and facilitated operations. Members of his group, which was formed with the personal approval of Osama bin Laden, have been convicted in the US of a plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999 and, in Germany, of a plan to bomb the Strasbourg Christmas market a year later.

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Between 1996 and 1999, according to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), he was based at al-Qaeda’s Khalden training camp in Afghanistan where he formed a cell of north African terrorists tasked with exporting jihad to the West.

He then returned to London and ran his operations out of the Finsbury Park Mosque, then under the control of Abu Hamza al-Masri, and maintained close contact with Abu Qatada.

Mr Justice Ouseley said in one SIAC ruling that U “had a wide range of extremist Islamic contacts inside and outside the United Kingdom. He was involved in a number of extremist agendas. By being in the United Kingdom he had brought cohesion to Algerian extremists based here and he had strengthened links with the terrorist training facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” In February 2001, several months after the Strasbourg bomb plot was foiled, U was arrested at Heathrow airport as he tried to board a flight to Saudi Arabia with fake passports. At addresses linked to U they found fake credit cards, a telescopic rifle sight and other terrorist paraphernalia.

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British courts were overly concerned about his comfort in Algeria so they refused to deport him. At one time it was thought that ht might be extradited to the US , but the request was dropped, probably because of the failure of lawfare prosecutions in this country.

The man should be sent to Gitmo until the war is over, but the terrorist rights crowd would rather see him free to plot the demise of more non combatants. They will blame the authorities for the failure to build a case against him. Liberals are way more trouble than they are worth sometimes and they are going to get some innocent people killed with this nonsense.

The Telegraph reports that a terror suspect released on bail has also gone missing after leaving a suicide note. "The suspect was due to stand trial later this year charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit explosions, amongst other alleged offences." Why would anyone be idiotic enough to release a person like this on bail?

Both of these cases are an example of the failure of lawfare to deal with the problem of terrorist making war against us.