British appeal court upholds Libyan terror suspects ruling

A controversial ruling which dealt a major blow to the British government’s anti-terror policy was upheld by the Court of Appeal today.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had challenged the decision of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) to allow appeals by two Libyan terror suspects against deportation.

It was the first test of the memoranda of understanding – MOU – which the British government had signed with Tripoli to remove suspects without breaching human rights laws.

SIAC found the men faced a risk of ill-treatment, including torture, if they were returned to Libya.

Today a panel of three senior judges headed by the Master of the Rolls, Anthony Clarke, said it was agreed that the pair, identified only as AS and DD, were a threat to national security with links to al-Qaida.

Clarke said the Home Office accepted that, but for MOU, the UK would have serious concerns about the real risks faced by the men as extreme Islamist opponents of the Libyan regime and their alleged membership of the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group.

SIAC identified the risks as torture, detention without trial, unfair trial and imprisonment for political reasons, or a death penalty.

The British Home Office claimed SIAC applied a wrong test to the degree of risk faced by the men if deported and did not give sufficient weight to the evidence that Libya would abide by the terms of the MOU.

Clarke, giving the judgment of the court, said: “As we see it, SIAC fully understood and sought to apply the correct test.

“Its responsibility was to consider the many pieces of evidence in a complex picture and to decide whether there were substantial grounds for believing that there was a real risk that the respondents would be tortured some time after their return to Libya, notwithstanding the terms of the MOU.”

The British Home Office appeal was dismissed.

In a separate ruling delivered by the same panel of judges today, an appeal over deportation by a Jordanian national considered a threat to national security was allowed.

The man, identified as OO, was described by SIAC as an Islamist extremist actively engaged in trying to change the Jordan regime and with links to terrorist groups.

He had been sentenced to life imprisonment in Jordan in 1999 in his absence for conspiracy to commit terrorist activities.

SIAC had dismissed the man’s appeal against deportation on the grounds that his human rights would not be breached since Jordan signed an MOU.

Lord Justice Buxton, giving the ruling of the panel of judges, concluded that because of the issue of evidence obtained by torture in Jordan, SIAC had misdirected itself in law and its decision could not stand.