When
critics of the government’s anti-terror laws
put it to them that out of the 701 people arrested
under the Terrorism Act since September 11 2001
only 17 have been convicted, one of the responses
of the government is to say that there are still
prosecutions pending. They give the impression that
they are certain that all the outstanding cases
will end in convections so much so that it will
leave no doubt in people’s minds that the terrorist
threat is real and not imagined. ‘Prosecutions
pending’ was the euphemism used when referring
to the ricin trial which the government couldn’t
mention by name for legal reason as it was subjected
to reporting restrictions. But whilst the trial
was subjected to reporting restrictions the arrests
certainly weren’t.
In
his now infamous discredited address to the United
Nations Security Council in February 2003 Colin
Powell, along with his false claims about the existence
of WMD in Iraq, tried to use the arrests of the
ricin suspects as evidence of a Saddam al-Qaeda
axis in the rush to war. And while the trial of
the suspects was in progress the then Home Secretary
David Blunkett made the following comments: “Al-Qaeda
is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through
the courts over months to come, to be actually on
our doorsteps and threatening our lives. I am talking
about people who are and about to go through the
court system.” In theory those remarks amount
to contempt of court, the trial should have been
stopped there and then and Blunkett should have
been charged. Never has a court case in recent times
been the subject of such prejudicial comments as
the ricin trial. Yet in spite of the best efforts
of the British and American governments eight of
the suspects have been acquitted by the courts and
only one of them, Kamel Bourgass has been convicted.
The
conviction of Kamel Bourgass is the perfect election
campaign present. For Labour he is proof of an al-Qaeda
operative active in Britain and the reason why we
need identity cards, to the Conservatives he is
a failed asylum seeker. But let’s look at the
case against him more closely and see if he really
was part of an al-Qaeda plot to kill thousands.
During
a raid on a flat in Wood Green north London police
found a recipe for making ricin claiming that it
was written by Bourgass. They maintained that the
recipe had been copied straight out of a book called
‘Manual for Jihad’ which originates
from Afghanistan, although what they failed to mention
was that the manual was written during the Soviet
period and was more than likely penned by the Americans,
it certainly isn’t an al-Qaeda document like
they say it is. The recipe they found in Wood Green
however was taken from a different book entitled
‘The Poisoner’s Handbook’
by Maxwell Hutchkinson which is freely available
on the internet and purchasable from Amazon.com
and not taken from ‘Manual for Jihad’
and the two recipes differ considerably. The rest
of the evidence against Bourgass consisted of some
castor beans intact, apple pips, weighing scales
and a bottle of shampoo.
Initial
tests carried out by scientists from the government’s
Porton Down laboratory at the Wood Green flat claimed
to have found positive traces of ricin although
only two days later they admitted that they had
made a mistake and no traces of ricin had in fact
been found, this however was not reported at the
time. Even though the police and government knew
that the tests for ricin had proven negative they
continued to claim that it had been found and briefed
the press accordingly. The conspiracy that the prosecution
outlined against Bourgass and the other defendants
came courtesy of a man named Mohammed Meguerba,
an Algerian who was one time resident in Britain
but when returning to Algeria several years ago
was arrested. The systematic use of torture is practiced
in Algeria so we need to bear that it mind when
we consider what Meguerba is alleged to have said.
It is a fanciful tale of a plan to smear nicotine
poison, itself not lethal, on car door handles on
the Holloway Road and to contaminate toothbrushes;
one is reminded of the confessions that have come
out of Guantánamo Bay when listening to this.
Far from being part of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell
that was going to carry out coordinated attacks
with other cells in other countries Kamel Bourgass
was a loner with a conviction for shoplifting. As
we all know now Kamel Bourgass was also convicted
for stabbing a police officer when he was arrested
in Manchester. Different people respond in different
ways when arrested, Kamel Bourgass may now be thinking
that he should have acted differently. But when
you consider that many of his fellow Algerians have
found themselves interned indefinitely without charge
or trial then that might help explain why somebody
would react in the way he did when arrested, when
the state acts irrationally others follow suit.
The
Wood Green and Manchester raids were the culmination
of a nation-wide operation against the Algerian
community that resulted in the arrests of a hundred
people, nine of whom were charged but none of which
were convicted of any terrorist offence. When dealing
with the Terrorism Act this is not a remarkable
statistic, it is its distinguishing trait as I know
from personnel experience.
Exactly
a year ago I was acquitted of charges under the
Terrorism Act along with five other people. We had
been charged with membership of a proscribed organisation
and raising funds for terrorism. My front door was
kicked in at five in the morning back in December
2002 by Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch
I was then taken to the high security Paddington
Green police station and held for a week. After
several days I was taken to Bow Street magistrates
where the police were making an application to the
judge to allow them more time to question me. Whilst
I was in the cells I could hear several men speaking
in what I presumed was Arabic. I couldn’t understand
what they were saying but I could tell from their
voices that they were gripped with panic. Those
men in the cells next to me, although never charged
with any offence under the Terrorism Act, were supposed
to be part of a plot to gas the London underground.
The press went public with that false allegation
after a press briefing from John Prescott, he later
admitted that he had made a mistake and withdrew
the claim except that part was never reported. Two
weeks later the Wood Green raid took place followed
closely by another raid in Manchester where Bourgass
was arrested. Arrests were happening all over the
country from Bournemouth to Edinburgh, it seemed
that a week didn’t go by without there being
either an arrest or talk of an imminent attack having
been foiled in the press. I found myself sandwiched
between arrests of the most exotic and incredulous
sounding plots ever reported.
After
a lot of good work by my solicitors I was granted
bail. I spent the next six months trying to find
out when and where my trial would take place. Due
to all the arrests I was told that the courts were
clogged up and as if I was waiting for treatment
on the NHS I was told there was a waiting list.
The prosecution wanted me to stand trial at the
Old Bailey but in the end I was sent to a crown
court in the London suburb of Kingston-upon-Thames.
The trial eventually began 18 months on from my
arrest but following just one week of legal arguments
the case against all six of us was thrown out by
the judge who said: "Were this prosecution
to continue, it would bring the administration of
justice into disrepute amongst right-thinking people
and offend this court's sense of propriety and justice."
The
case against us consisted of the importing and selling
of a left wing Turkish language magazine. This magazine
is entirely legal in Turkey, is registered with
the state as is the law and pays taxes to it. All
of that though was lost on the prosecution who instead
portrayed the six of us as part of a terrorist cell
who were acting under the instructions of people
who they could not name. A legal magazine became
‘terrorist property’, selling the magazine
became ‘raising funds for terrorism’,
sending the money back to the magazine’s bureau
in Istanbul became ‘money laundering’,
the keeping of the magazine in a house became ‘facilitating
the retention and control of terrorist property’
and refusing to answer questions during police interrogation,
as is your right, became ‘evidence of organisational
behaviour’. The organisation they said we belonged
to wasn’t even proscribed and the certificate
of consent from the Attorney General for the prosecution
to proceed had never been issued and yet if convicted
we would have faced up to ten years in prison.
There
was no plot to gas the London underground or bomb
the Hogmanay celebrations in Edinburgh. The rocket
attacks against passenger planes on the Heathrow
flight path never materialised and a boat sailing
up the Thames estuary had nothing more on board
than a consignment of sugar and not a dirty bomb
as we were told. The suicide bomb plot at Old Trafford
was made up by the police and my friends and I were
never terrorists. We can now add to this list that
there was also no ricin in Wood Green. But whilst
this phoney war was going on a more real one has
been taking place in which the British government
has been busy murdering tens of thousands of innocent
civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. Facts speak for
themselves or at least they should.
In
the war on terror the government has everything
they could want; more and more new laws, a press
that doesn’t ask too many questions and, unfortunately,
support from some sections of the population. But
the one missing ingredient, like the ricin in Wood
Green, is the actual terrorism. Political activists
and members of ethnic communities have been made
the scapegoats by an increasingly authoritarian
government that seeks to take away what little rights
we may have. The fake emergency needs to be kept
in the public eye so expect more arrests and talk
of ridiculous plots. If some are convicted be prepared
to question it and when others are acquitted don’t
believe that it was just a technicality and that
new laws and secret courts are needed to get convictions.
When
asked what his reaction was to the acquittal of
the eight other men in the ricin trial the Home
Secretary Charles Clarke replied that he intends
to,“keep a very close eye on them”. In
the war on terror innocence is irrelevant and as
I know from my own experience don’t expect
an apology. The only letter you are likely to receive
from them in the not too distant future is a control
order.
