I'm still really hoping that 50% of those on this thread are on the wind-up...

come on people, a guy with no job, a history of involvement with terrorist groups and being accused of sponsoring terrorist activites, what do you think the £170,000 was for and where did it come from, maybe he grew it in his money tree in the back garden, a guy in his circumstances does not get his hands on that kind of cash without it being highly illegal, or maybe we are wrong again and perhaps he has just been out collecting for charity and the tooth fairy really exists

Unfortunately Jim I don't think that they are, just look through other, earlier threads.

Are you incapable of reading and understanding? Nobody is suggesting that he's never done anything illegal, but if he has then the burden of proof lies in providing reliable and conclusive evidence he has done so.

No matter how infallible you may feel your instincts for spotting baddies are he still needs to be accused of an actual crime and tried for it.

i am perfectly capable of reading and understanding, i just happen to be expressing an opinion which differs from yours, sorry about that, but i don't want our country to be a haven for terrorists and their supporters who come here illegally

this guy is not from our country, send him back to where he comes from and let them deal with him or rather you would maybe have all these poor souls come to our country where they may freely scrounge off us all, while at the same time calling for us all to be blown up, but as long as their precious human rights are protected then thats ok despite the fact they would violate all of ours without a second thought

there seems to be a pattern of thought here that is we deport this guy that somehow the very foundation of our society will collapse, nobody will have any rights any more and that everyone will be arrested and we will suddenly find ourselves living in some sort of society where our every move will be monitored and we will be arrested for the merest infringement, bollocks, all that will happen is we wont have to pay a fortune every year for lunatics like this to hide in our country

You can only deport someone if it's legal to do so.

If your argument is that the law is an ass, then that's a bit different.

A valid point Jim.

Thankfully, its not me you should be arguing with though.

If you do not believe me, try the Police, the Security Service, the Spanish/German authorities, the Anti Terrorism Unit, and so on.

Are you actually suggesting that they are all wrong?



Should it not be legal to deport a foreign national who enters the UK illegally?

Lest we forget, as an example, had Mr Qatada entered the UK by clinging to the back axle of an HGV, and was subsequently discovered at the border, it would not be him that got fined, no no, the HGV driver would be, and have his licence revoked, facing possible jail time on top.

Mr Qatada on the other hand only has to mutter the word asylum, and suddenly he becomes a poster child for Human Rights activists.

What a fair, and just world we live in eh?

Charge them, put them on trial, put the evidence to them and then convict them.

Doug20vt - Does that sound like a possible sensible alternative to just acting on the basis of an allegation?

That trial should be fair, though. The question is would it be a fair trial for the case against anyone to be founded on what someone has said whilst under torture.

If Jordan had agreed not to rely upon evidence obtained by torture, it looks to me as if the ECHR would have sanctioned deportation, and I'm not sure anyone here would have been the slightest bit concerned.

Can you appreciate the concern and understand why it is not the same as saying I want the UK to be a safe haven for terrorists?

Not at all - it won't be sudden. The movement towards the society you describe is one of small steps, each one applicable to only a handful of cases, practically unobjectionable in and of themselves.

But the small things, the tiny infringements that make sense for individual cases, mount up and suddenly you find that the government can decide who is undesirable, that they have the authority to convict without trial, that you have no legal right to challenge the government.

That's why we don't circumvent the law for small issues, because if it happens for small issues then it will happen for big ones, eventually.

Shiny, you can use all the aggrieved rhetoric you want. You may have noticed that it cuts no ice with the people that decide these issues.

What I am "actually suggesting" is that if all the bodies you list had sufficient evidence that he had committed the offences you claim, then Abu Qatada would be in prison, convicted in a court of law.

No huffing and puffing or frothing at the mouth, just proof; that's what gets criminals convicted (with one or two glaring exceptions).

But therein lies the exact problem Jim, as we no longer control our legal system thanks to our good friend the EU, we have to suffer their incompetence on matters such as this.

The evidence against him, not only from our own Security Services, but those of at least two other countries have to be swept under the carpet incase we upset the poor little mite.

If the EU was not so blinded but the HRA, Mr Qatada could and should have been returned to the Jordanians years ago, to stand trial for his crimes in that country.

What may or may not happen to him is frankly of no concern what so ever - if you dont want to end your days in a squalid prison cell with your genitals on fire, the answer is simple, dont wage terrorist war against others.

Any 'human rights' you may have as an individual, you waiver as soon as you embark on such activities, and as such, just as has been reported (by the Police, Anti Terrorist Unit etc, not just the media) this man has actively encouraged, and supported terrorist groups within our own borders.

So, for us to now feel empathy for this man, and have to sheild him from the only justice he will understand is simply appalling.

And, if we were not so pathetically soft in this country, as soon as it was discovered he had entered the country illegally, he should have been taken to court for that CRIME, sentenced, jailed, and subsequently deported to his country of origin when his time was served.

But of course, that would violate his human rights...

And many, many people are in prison in countries such as China and Burma for supporting organisations that the governments of those countries have outlawed - and that's the problem with saying that human rights don't apply to people who support terrorists. If the government is only bound by those constraints, and they're also the ones who decide who are terrorists then nobody has any human rights.

And what about the human rights of all the innocent civilians targeted for execution because they dont read the same vile books as Qatada and his followers?

Are they less important than a man who wants to kill them?

You really don't get what the rule of law is about do you Shiny?

It's much easier to go off on a xenophobic rant any day.

Chine and Burma outlaw organisaions that seek to actively politically oppose their government, we do not do this, we outlaw terrorist organisations, there is a big difference

nobody is going to come up and accuse anyone on here of being a terrorist, this guy has been seen on countless videos celebrating the death of infedels and inciting others to join organisations whose sole purpose is to destroy our way of life, what more does this guy have to do for people to recognise him as a terrorist and supporter of terrorism

i think if you conducted a pole of people in the uk who want this guy out the country the overwhelming majority of them would want him out as did our government, but it seems we are all wrong and that the ECHR with its politcal correctness gone mad approach is correct

I think we have reached an impasse here.

We have the rule of the law for a reason.

This chap cannot be trusted. You cannot be trusted. I cannot be trusted. THe government cannot be trusted.

Which is why we have checks and balances. Sentencing someone to a trial based on evidence from torture is pointless. Its a charade. While we do indorse our own legal charades in local courts when they think the world isn't looking the principal is that the rule of law applies to all.

There is no difference at all - anybody can be called a terrorist, and that's the problem. If you don't think it's true then have a look at the language the US government uses to describe Anonymous; they're not religious fanatics, they're not putting any lives at risk, but they're skirting incredibly close to being openly called a terrorist organisation.



Oh, please, must we really scrape the bottom of the cliché barrel? The law is the law, it's what is written down. The whole point of it is that it doesn't bend to the will of the majority or the government.

Out of interest, how would you feel if the situation were the other way round - let's say a UK businessman, who had done a lot of work for charity, was facing trial for some criminal offence and the government was arguing that he shouldn't have to go to court because he was obviously a pretty nice guy. Would you feel that 'nice' people should be exempt from the law? Would a poll of public opinion change your mind?

Can we send Simon Cowell, Cliff Richard and Ant and Dec to Guantanamo Bay? Please? Pretty please?

we are not the US, we are the UK, nobody goes around calling people terrorists in this country for no reason, this guy has been rightly been labelled a terrorist and supporter of terrorism and frankly he is not even from this country so why should we be adopting his problems with other countries, where do you think he got the £170k from given that he is on benefits and what do you think he was going to do with it

and to compare my arguement of wanting this guy out the country to a businessman not being put on trial because he is thought of as nice guy by the public is a pretty vacuous comparison

I think it's time this country grew a pair, and stopped entertaining the pc brigade.

And we go round the circle again - if he has been rightly labelled a terrorist then were is the evidence he's a terrorist? Why isn't he being tried in a country that can provide legitimately and legally obtained evidence that he's a terrorist?

Given that it's well-proven that all torture does is get the person being tortured to say whatever they think will stop the torture it follows that evidence obtained from torture is no evidence at all. It further follows that if we're willing to accept evidence gained under torture, or deport to countries which will use such evidence then we've clearly undermined human rights, irrespective of how nasty we think the person in question is, or how far their values are misaligned with our own.



I don't know where the money came from, but if it can be shown that it was obtained illegally then he should stand trial for whichever offence netted him the money. Hell, even if it can be shown he didn't pay tax on it, or neglected to mention it on his benefit claim form then he should stand trial for those offences, what should not happen is that a presumption of guilt is made without evidence.

We may not be the US, but the principle still stands - once the criteria for being convicted as a terrorist is established as the government says you're a terrorist then, like it or not, and however unlikely you think it ever is to pass, you've paved the way for oppression.



Pretty vacuous in that it shows why ignoring the law in individual cases is stupid?

the British court wanted this guy deported as in their words he is 'truly dangerous', you and the pc brigade in the ECHR however don't want this poor soul suffering any mistreatment abroad

do you put the human rights of an illegal immigrant who openly preaches hatred of our lifestyle and wishes death to loads of us, yet scrounges off us all and hides in our country, before the wishes of the British court system that wants to deport him

if you do that's pretty worrying quite frankly

The worry with my approach is that we'll end up with people living in this country who are openly hostile towards its population.

The worry with your approach is that we'll end up living in a country where the government is openly hostile to the people.

Given the choice I'll take my chances with the people who are so clearly dangerous terrorists that they can not be properly convicted of any crime, it seems.

so by evicting a guy that comes to this country illegally and openly preaches hatred to us all and says he supports organisations that would aim to blow us up and destroy our way of life suddenly we arrive at a situation where the government is openly hostile to the people

thats a bit of a fictious leap i'm afraid and the government is not trying to deport British citizens abroad just a lunatic illegal immigrant, hardly hostility to the people

Also, while there's been a lot of tired old name-calling on this thread; "PC brigade", "wishy-washy liberals", "bleeding hearts", etc, I'd like to point out that, fundamentally, we all come from the same place.

I don't give a damn about this guy's human rights, I don't even give a damn about your human rights, all I care about are my human rights.

What makes us wishy-washy-bleading-heart-PC-brigade-liberals is that we see if we take away his human rights then that will pave the way for taking away your human rights, which will eventually lead to the loss of my human rights.

This isn't about being compassionate, or caring, or feeling that he's probably a poor, misunderstood soul who had a nasty childhood, it's about joining the dots and seeing the picture that they draw.

You should always remember that the ECHR was founded with the view that it should limit the power of governments, not because it's the politically correct thing to do, but because the people who founded it had seen the terrible, terrible things that governments could do when they were unrestrained.

You may think that we live in calm and stable times, but the people of the 20s and early 30s thought the same thing.

Not suddenly, just eventually.

Might I suggest that the reason he isn't already behind bars is because he's allegedly a 'Preacher of hate', and we don't have the greatest of records for successfully proving that these sort of people are directly linked with terrorist activities.

Its the ones with the ready made bombs that tend to bear the brunt of things (in more ways than one).

The state has to justify it's existence to the individual, not the other way around. Yet in the last 12 years we have seen a massive increase in legislation curtailing the rights of the individual, a massive leap in the amount of acts now criminalised and proposals for more and more. The threat of terrorism has been used as a catch all to justify many of these infringements yet there have been comparitievely few actual threats or incidents - and the government has continued to attack the fabric of our society, destroying the very freedoms which make our society what we value.

The government IS hostile to the people and HAS been complicit in the deportation/extradition of British ciitizens to foreign states where they have or will face severe penalty for actions real or imagined or for actions committed here which are not crimes here.



Who is and is not a terrorist is a fluid definition. The state of Israel was created by people who the British called terrorists, who shot and bombed British troops, and who were fought by the British with the aid of people now called the Palestinians. Yet now Britain courts Israel as an ally and calls the Palestinians terrorists.

More recently Britain sent men to Libya to be "prosecuted" ie, tortured by Ghadaffi , yet now those same men are courted as the new legitimate government who with British aid have overthrown the tyrant Ghadaffi.

And if you want to insist that those you feel have offensive views be prosecuted, deported and/or summarily executed, try doing so in a less offensive way lest you be hoist by your own petard.

terribly sorry if find the way i express my views offensive, but frankly some of your responses to views i have expressed have been directly rude to me and the fact you choose to trawl through a thesaurus to dress up your responses and make you feel clever doesnt make your responses to me any less rude

First they came for the religious fanatics and I said nothing as I wasn't a religious fanatic.
Then they came for the asylum seekers and I said nothing as I wasn't an asylum seeker.
Then they came for the jobless and feckless and I said nothing because I wasn't jobless or feckless.
Then they announced that I was going to be paying only half the tax I have previously as there was a massive budget surplus and I threw a party.
Then I woke up and realised all these people had the human right to help themselves to over half of my hard earned wages each year.