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July 21, 2005
Britain and Jordan Agree on Expulsion of Terror Suspects
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, July 20 - Britain struck a preliminary agreement with Jordan on Wednesday that may lead to the expulsion of a suspected close ally of Osama bin Laden, the first in a series of measures aimed at curtailing the activities of militant clerics.
The new policy could take months to carry out in the face of expected court challenges. Abu Qatada, the cleric most likely to be affected, is a Palestinian citizen of Jordan. In court documents he has been called a "right-hand man" in Europe of Mr. bin Laden and a spiritual guide for Al Qaeda.
The agreement, expected to be followed by similar arrangements with other countries, is the latest sign that - belatedly in the eyes of its critics - Britain is cranking up antiterrorist procedures, moving away from a longstanding policy of offering sanctuary to Muslim radicals who might face torture or the death penalty in their own countries.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he had authorized the compilation of a global list of suspects likely to be expelled from or barred entry to Britain if they were found to be "preaching, running a Web site or writing articles which are intended to foment or provoke terrorism."
Almost two weeks after the bombings on July 7 that killed 56 people, Britain still seems to be in a state of shock as it grasps for ways to explain why four British Muslims rode into London aboard a commuter train with backpacks of explosives that detonated on three subway trains and a double-decker bus.
Ken Livingstone, the normally loquacious mayor of London, who earned considerable respect after the bombings for his restrained response, said in a BBC interview on Wednesday that the blame lay with "80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil."
Asked if he denounced the London bombers, he said he also denounced "those governments which use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy, as we have occasionally seen with the Israeli government bombing areas from which a terrorist group will have come, irrespective of the casualties it inflicts, women, children and men."
"Under foreign occupation and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work for three generations," he said, "I suspect that if it had happened here in England we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves."
Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the British intelligence and law enforcement officials who less than a month before the attacks concluded that "at present there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the U.K.," according to a confidential terror assessment.
"I'm satisfied that they do everything that is possible to protect our country," Mr. Blair said Wednesday in Parliament.
The security report was sent to British government agencies, foreign governments and corporations in mid-June and prompted the British government to lower its formal threat assessment by one level.
But just weeks earlier, the country's ranking police officer, Sir Ian Blair, the head of Scotland Yard, offered a less optimistic assessment, saying a "credible threat" existed.
"The intelligence report that I see, and my colleagues and security services see, tells us that there is a credible threat," Sir Ian said in an interview with Ahmed Versi, editor of The Muslim News, a monthly. "There is a clear evidence of people reconnoitering, moving money around. There's a lot of stuff on e-mail and the Internet."
"I suppose I'd rather be accused of saying there's too much of a threat than appearing to be complacent," he said, according to a transcript of the interview. "We don't do the American stuff of raising instant warnings."
Mr. Versi said Wednesday that the interview was conducted on May 20 but was published in the June 24 issue of The Muslim News - two weeks before the London bombings.
A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard, who spoke in return for anonymity under police procedures, said the remarks reflected Sir Ian's assessment of the situation at the time he gave the interview. Neither in the interview nor subsequently has he said he had foreknowledge of the July 7 attacks, which the authorities have said came without warning.
The measures against what the police here call "preachers of hate" follow years of warnings from foreign intelligence services that British tolerance of radical clerics and terror suspects wanted in other places had turned London into "Londonistan" or "Beirut-on-Thames....
