What About The Human Rights Of The Law Abiding Majority!?!

So, Abu Qatada, the radical Islamic cleric and Osama bin Laden’s “right-hand man in Europe”, has been released from jail because we apparently have no grounds to keep him in prison.

It comes as no surprise to me that the principle reason given by the judge, Mr Justice Mitting, for his release was possible infringement of his human rights if we continued to detain him, despite the danger he presents to British people. This followed an earlier Court of Appeal decision to refuse his deportation to Jordan, again on the grounds that it might breach his human rights.


To put this into perspective, the same court had earlier described Qatada as "a truly dangerous individual" who was "heavily involved, indeed at the centre of terrorist activities associated with al-Qa'eda". Despite this description it appears our governments devotion to the European Convention on Human Rights prevents us from throwing him out of our country or locking him.


Over the next few days, weeks and months this dangerous man will be confined to his London home for a minimum of 22 hours of every day and we will require him to wear an electronic tag. We will continue to pay his family £12,000 a year in state benefits, (£1,000 a month), and can now add to this the cost of a 24 hour a day 7 day a week police presence outside his house - all this being spent on a man the police once found with £170,000 in cash in his possession.

Devastation to a bombed hotel lobby in Amman, Jordan, November 1998

This man helped mastermind the 11th September bombings and Jordan has already convicted him, in his absence, of bombings in Amman in 1998 and of providing finance and advice to terrorists planning a series of explosions on Millennium night. To enable us to consider his deportation Jordan promised Qatada a retrial, but our Court of Appeal now says we cannot deport him to stand trial in Jordan because some of the evidence they might use could have been obtained using torture.


If this is what ECHR means to the safety and security of the UK I say we kick it into touch and fend for ourselves.


The British public is very capable of making sensible decisions on human rights and people who want to see an end to our way of life should not be allowed to hide behind European law to retain residential status and claim state benefits - no matter what they claim will happen to them if they are deported!