Judges refuse to be swayed by politicians' terrorism warnings
Tribunal's rejection of security law halts indefinite detention of suspects
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Confined to a wheelchair and suffering from severe mental illness, the 30-year-old Palestinian man is close to death in the hospital wing of one of Britain's highest-security jails.
Psychiatrists who come from Broadmoor special hospital to visit him at Belmarsh prison, south London, believe that after a three-month hunger strike he is at serious risk of dying in custody.
The man has not been charged but is locked up because he has been deemed by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, to be a "risk to national security".
He was one of 11 men who were interned under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which was rushed through Parliament after the attacks of 11 September.
For up to 223 days, the men have been designated Category A prisoners and held under the strictest conditions without being told the nature of the allegations against them. The suspects' lawyers complain that the 11 are kept in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.
British intelligence views the suspects as dangerous fundamentalists who cannot be charged because of a lack of admissible evidence that will not compromise sources.
Yesterday, the Special Immigration Appeal Commission ruled that the men's detention under the emergency legislation was unlawful because the special powers discriminated against foreign nationals.
A spokesman for Amnesty International said the suspects should be released, but the Home Office said they would remain in jail while the ruling was appealed.
The controversy has raised further questions over the real and perceived threat to Britain from al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. Politicians have talked up the danger only to be undermined by the British courts, which have judged their evidence against suspects to be insubstantial or their proposed powers for dealing with threats to be inappropriate.
Earlier this week, attempts by the US government to extradite a London bookseller, Yasser al-Siri, collapsed after Mr Blunkett decided there was insufficient evidence against him. The decision came after the Old Bailey had thrown out charges linking Mr Siri to a terrorist assassination in Afghanistan. In May, a British magistrate rejected a US Government attempt to extradite the Algerian-born Lotfi Raissi, who it accused of training the 11 September hijackers.
The French are furious that, last month, the High Court threw out an attempt to extradite Rachid Ramda, who was wanted for attacks on the Paris Metro in 1995, and at the failure of the British to act against the Muslim cleric known as Abu Qatada, who was described by a Spanish court as the spiritual head of al-Qa'ida in Europe.
However, the determination of the courts to uphold individuals' rights does not mean the terrorist threat to Britain has been exaggerated.The commission upheld the Home Secretary's appraisal of the risk, saying he had been correct to state there was a "public emergency threatening the life of the nation". In private submissions to the commission, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, reportedly said 11 September had "changed for ever the landscape of terrorism" and that Britain was a potential target.
The Home Secretary introduced his powers to plug a gap in the law that allowed foreign nationals to stay in Britain even though they threatened security. In the face of criticism in Parliament, Mr Blunkett opted out of article five of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to liberty. The other options were to allow suspects to stay at large, or withdraw from the convention and deport them to countries where they faced persecution or death. Those detained are free to leave prison if they can find a country to admit them. Two of the 11 have done so.
But unless Mr Blunkett's appeal succeeds, he must drop the powers or persuade Parliament the threat is so great that the measures must be expanded to cover British citizens.
Rush to legislate: How the West set up anti-terror laws
United States
The USA Patriot Act of October 2001 tightened immigration laws, controls on money-laundering and expanded the legal use of electronic surveillance to allow "roving wiretaps" of a person rather than a computer or telephone. The Act permits indefinite detention of non-citizens on minor visa violations, and gives the government greater powers to conduct secret searches. It can also designate domestic groups as terrorist organisations and deport any non-citizen who belongs to them.
Britain
The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act of December last year created the power to detain foreign suspected terrorists without trial. Customs and Excise and the Inland Revenue were given powers to pass on information about finances if the request is "proportionate". Communications companies can retain numbers called or e-mail addresses but not message content and only if terrorist activity is suspected.
European Union
All EU states signed up to pan-European arrest warrants that allow a court in one country to issue an warrant for a suspect that can be enforced across the Union, bypassing the lengthy extradition procedure. It applies to 32 crimes from murder to assault and comes into force in 2004. All 15 states also agreed a common definition of terrorism.
Germany
Introduced a package that changed 17 existing laws and five regulations. Passport and expulsion procedures were tightened up and new powers were given to immigration authorities, police and national law enforcement agencies.