UK: ACTSA prisoner released after three years
01 August 2004
The government's emergency anti-terrorism laws came under renewed attack in September when David Blunkett decided that a suspect, interned at Woodhill prison for three years without charge or access to legal advice, was no longer a threat to security. The man, who despite his release can only be named as "D", was one of 12 foreign nationals being held without due legal process at top security prisons in the UK under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act (ATCSA). The ATCSA has been described as "a perversion of justice" and a shadow criminal justice system by Amnesty International. Those detained under its powers have yet to be questioned by the police. Their detention has been compared to that of the hundreds of prisoners, including several British citizens, held at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The detainees at Britain's "Guantanamo" are suffering serious mental health problems due to the conditions of their detention and the uncertainly about when - or if - they will be released (see Statewatch vol. 14 no 2).
D was among the first group of foreign nationals rounded up by police after 11 September as a threat to national security and he has been imprisoned since 17 December 2001. He lost an appeal against his internment last October when the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) backed Home Secretary David Blunkett's decision to detain him because of alleged links to the Algerian Groupe Islamique Armee (GIA); the GIA is banned in the UK under the Terrorism Act 2000. D's detention was upheld by the SIAC again in July when it was minded to comment: "We accept D has a history of involvement in terrorist support activity and has the ability and commitment...to resume those activities were he to be at liberty in the UK."
D's sudden release was explained by Blunkett, who said "I have concluded...that the weight of evidence in relation to "D" at the current time does not justify the continuance of the certificate [that authorises his imprisonment]." Natalia Garcia, D's solicitor, remarked that her client feels that "he has been locked up for three years on a whim". Blunkett's offhand explanation was also criticised by Labour Party backbenchers and Liberal Democrat politicians as well as Shami Chakrabarti, of the civil liberties organisation Liberty, who said that "The Home Secretary is acting as judge and jury in relation to him [D] and all of those detainees still held."
D is the third of the detainees to be released. In March M, a 38-year old Libyan, became the first of the prisoners to be released (after 16 months in detention) when he won an appeal after the SIAC found that he had been interned on the basis of undisclosed intelligence that was "exaggerated" and "wholly unreliable". Upon his release he said that several of his fellow ACTSA detainees were being driven into physical and mental illness because of the conditions of their incarceration. Prisoner G (a 35-year old Algerian who was detained for two years) showed his words to be prophetic when he was released after the SIAC ruled that "he had become mentally deranged...and that his detention meant he was in danger of self-harm." He is now tagged and held under house arrest (see Statewatch vol. 14 no 2).
On 13 October a group of consultant psychiatrists and a psychologist reported "serious damage to the health of all the detainees [eight] that they have examined". Their findings, which were based on 48 reports and documents commissioned over the past two and a half years, found that the effects were "inevitable under a regime which consists of indefinite detention". The doctors reported that: "Detention has had a severe adverse impact on the mental health of all of the detainees and spouses interviewed. All are clinically depressed and a number are suffering from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. The indefinite nature of detention is a major factor in their deterioration."
Their report highlights the following<