Civil liberties concerns expressed over arrest laws

European leaders are being stampeded by the terrorist threat into approving new EU legal powers which ignore civil liberties, it was claimed today.

Liberal Democrat Euro MP Graham Watson said the pressure of the September 11 atrocities was so great that ‘‘not one Eurosceptic dog has barked’’ over sweeping new search and arrest powers due to be approved at an EU summit next month.

He said it was remarkable that no Eurosceptic voice had spoken out, adding: ‘‘I would go so far as to say that Osama bin Laden has done more for European integration than anyone since Jacques Delors.’’

A package of anti-terrorist measures - under consideration in Europe long before the attacks in America - was speeded through by the Brussels Commission in the days after September 11, including an EU-wide arrest warrant to streamline existing cumbersome extradition procedures.

But Mr Watson said the move raises questions about whether full account has been taken of civil liberties.

He was joined at a press conference in Brussels by the director of Fair Trials Abroad, Stephen Jakobi, who said: ‘‘We do not believe that anyone has really worked out the implications.

Under the proposed arrest warrant, anyone wanted for questioning elsewhere in Europe will be sent away from home to a foreign prison where he or she may linger for weeks or months before, with luck, be eliminated from inquiries.

‘‘Given the British experience with the Prevention of Terrorism Act, where there was only one conviction for every 100 people arrested, the European Arrest Warrant looks like being the law enforcement equivalent of carpet bombing with up to 100 innocent citizens’ lives wrecked for every crook or terrorist sent abroad when they could all be questioned at home.’’

He said he was fundamentally in favour of an EU-wide arrest warrant - along the same principles as the EU-wide single market - but there had to be safeguards for civil liberties and the effective mutual recognition of national judicial systems in the EU member states.

Fair Trials Abroad is now stepping up its campaign for the new EU anti-terrorist provisions to be modified before Europe’s leaders put them on the statute book at their summit in Laeken in Belgium in December.