Wed, 15 Jan 2003 14:22:08 +0000
--=======3FF82BF======= Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-44BB1360; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit How to stitch up a terror suspect http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,873043,00.html There's no chance of a fair trial when Government, press and police get together to damn these 'terrorists' Nick Cohen - Sunday January 12, 2003 The Observer That was a close shave. The hospitals might have been clogged with corpses, if it hadn't been for the brilliant detective work of the Metropolitan Police and MI5. No potential juror can be in any doubt that our protectors foiled mass murderers. The seven men arrested in north London last week were, without question, al- Qaeda terrorists. Everyone says it. Everyone knows it. 'Britain's not just embracing terrorists, but housing them at the taxpayer's expense,' bellowed the Express. The Sun declared that the 'poison factory used to make deadly ricin is just 200 yards from the lair of one of Osama bin Laden's henchmen. Police racing against time to smash the terror network fear MORE fanatics may be plotting in the area.' Over at the Mail, Jane Corbin, a 'terrorism expert', wondered how high the assassins were aiming. 'Could a high-profile figure, the Prime Minister himself or another VIP, have been the target this time?' she mused. She wasn't sure - about this and much else. The attack might not have taken place in London, she continued. The ricin 'could have been destined for use in Manchester or Madrid or Munich' or any other city she could think of whose name began with 'M' - except Mecca. On one point she was certain. Corbin could assure jurors these men were 'terrorists'. Six were 'either Algerian or of North African origin, and the Algerian connection with Osama bin Laden goes back a long way.' QED. Journalists working for the broadsheet press once had a greater respect for the rule of law. But size isn't important these days. The Times announced that 'terrorist leaders realise that one of the surest ways to plant agents suc cessfully in Britain is to have them apply for asylum. At least three of the seven men being interrogated by Scotland Yard in connection with the north London ricin "laboratory" are understood to have made applications.' What more proof do nit-pickers need? The BBC tends to look down its well-bred nose at the press in general and rough boys and girls on the tabloids in particular. Last week Margaret Gilmour, the Jennie Bond of home affairs journalism, and Frank Gardner, the BBC's security correspondent, seemed more like actors than reporters as they parroted the briefings of MI5 and Anti-Terrorist Squad officers without a moment's scepticism. I don't wish to be too prudish. The Observer has pushed at the law's restraints and I've tested its boundaries myself. Left to its own devices, any newspaper which has a proprietor who isn't censoring, an editor who isn't mad and reporters who aren't drunk will publish if it thinks it won't be damned. The 1981 Contempt of Court Act was once a damnable restraint on trial by media. It prevented journalists prejudicing juries by announcing that suspects in custody are 'terrorists' or 'fanatics' or assassins plotting to kill the Prime Minister. Truth was no defence. Evidence couldn't be broadcast until it had been tested in court. Guilt could be pronounced only by a judge or jury. Last year the editor of the Sunday Mirror had to resign after committing a spectacular contempt of court which caused the collapse of the trial of two Leeds footballers. Nervousness gripped media lawyers, but the fainting fits quickly passed. What has changed is the attitude of the Government. The state is complicit in contempt of court, and hopes to profit from it. If Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair's Attorney General, were to do his duty, many eminent people would be embarrassed. Not every mysteriously authoritative 'security source' you hear us quoting knows what they are talking about. But a few are senior officers and have a bureaucratic interest in blackening the reputations of suspects before a trial begins. A serious investigation would require that they be taken in for questioning. Goldsmith might also have to put half of his Government colleagues in the dock. Tony Blair said the ricin arrests showed 'this danger is present and real and with us now and its potential is huge'. As a lawyer, he ought to know convictions show a real and present danger. Arrests tell the Prime Minister to hold his wagging tongue. I heard Nick Raynsford say he couldn't comment on the case and then do just that, and Geoff Hoon congratulate the police and MI5. If defendants are convicted, the officers should indeed be given as much beer as they can drink, but not until there is a conviction. Defence lawyers put the media, bureaucracy and politicians together and say Britain now has a rolling conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The media want a story. The police want a result. Ministers want to reassure a fearful public that they are dealing with terrorism. Relations between the three aren't always harmonious, but a case before Bow Street Magistrates tomorrow suggests that they can operate as one for all their bickering. The three defendants are Algerian (guilty according to Corbin's Law). On 17 November, the day before an earlier hearing, the Sunday Times said they were 'a gang of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists [which] plotted to kill commuters on the London Underground by releasing poison gas in a crowded carriage'. David Blunkett had 'insisted the police shut down the suspected terrorist cell and rejected a plan to delay any arrests'. Fleet Street scrambled to follow up the sensational tale of the Home Secretary intervening to save the lives of hundreds. The Independent on Sunday said the Algerians may have been planning to place a dirty nuclear bomb 'on a ferry using a British port'. We said they had been charged with plotting to 'release cyanide on the London Underground', as did pretty much everyone else. Broadcasters repeated the story. There wasn't a word of truth in it. The Algerians face charges of holding forged passports for terrorist purposes. David Blunkett attempted to stop the prejudicing of the case but only compounded the original offence. He told the Today programme that the police 'actually picked up those who, quite separately from any nonsense about gas attacks, actually were planning to set up a cell to threaten our country'. The Algerians' lawyers weren't grateful. They said Blunkett's assertion about a 'terrorist cell' was a separate, but as serious, contempt of court. Gareth Peirce the solicitor for one of the defendants, was stunned 'by this quite extraordinary tidal wave of completely contemptuous and prejudicial coverage'. The next week the Sunday Times was adamant that what it had printed came from the most reputable security sources. It discussed them at length and added that 'other newspapers and broadcasters were given a "green light" from Downing Street to follow-up the Sunday Times story'. The Attorney General thus had credible allegations of a plot to subvert justice. The editors and broadcasters who bellowed about poison gas might have been in contempt of court even if the accusation was true, which it wasn't. The evidence against them was on the record. The Home Secretary disobeyed the 1981 Act, and Today had a tape of all the evidence needed to prosecute him. Meanwhile, the Sunday Times had given a convincing account of the complicity of the Prime Minister's Office, police and intelligence services, which at least merited investigation before it could be dismissed. Goldsmith did send editors a feeble note reminding them of the provisions of the 1981 Act (it had no effect whatsoever). But he refused to investigate his colleagues. In a multi-media age, his officials explained, there were just so many outlets it was impossible to keep tabs on them all. Their combined coverage may prejudice trials, but who was to say one broadcaster or newspaper was guilty of contempt? We found Goldsmith's evasions odd here at The Observer. The multi-media age notwithstanding, whenever we've tried to print material the Government doesn't like, he has rushed to get an old-fashioned writ if he thinks he can stop us. But then the Government has given no indication that it objects to the trials of alleged terrorists being prejudiced. Goldsmith works for an administration which attacks juries and the independence of the judges. He led the Government's defence of interning Arabs without fair trials before either judge or jury. Contempt for courts is the partner of contempt of court. W.B. Yeats knew the forces of order can be the greatest threat to the rule of law when he wrote: 'What if the Church and the State/Are the mob that howls at the door!' Our modern mob is in Downing Street and Fleet Street, New Scotland Yard and the BBC. If a compromised Attorney General won't stand up to it, then the judiciary must. I've no wish to see the guilty go free, but it would serve the mob right if a judge released terrorist suspects because its baying had made fair trials impossible. --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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