GUILTY OF BEING NOT GUILTY (continued): 'Guantanamo-like' treatment dogs the exonerated from London ricin trial

Last week, Dick Destiny blog discussed the plight of one man, exonerated in the London ricin ring terror trial in 2005, as revealed in the UK publication, the New Statesman. And you can read it here.

Although now few in the US remember, when news of the London ricin ring broke in early 2003, the newsmedia could not get enough of it.

Discovering an alleged al Qaeda chemical and biological weapons plot in the heart of London dovetailed nicely with the building terror paranoia that resulted in the disastrous war on Iraq.

The alleged existence of ricin and "the UK poison cell" in January 2003 subsequently played a part of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council as rationale for war with that country. In his now infamous speech, Powell purported to show how a web of terrorists including the UK cell, was interconnected with Muhamad al Zarqawi, who was said to be directing terrorist plots from the safe refuge of Iraq.

The actual trial of the alleged al Qaeda poison ring blew a hole in all of it. There was no linkage to al Qaeda or al Zarqawi. There was no ricin made. A positive finding the day of the original raid to round up conspirators had been a false positive but this news had not been publicized. Only a handful of castor seeds in a jewelry tin had been found.

But the US newsmedia, so eager to publicize news of ricin found in al Qaeda hands in London prior to the Iraq war, decided not to cover the actual findings in the trial in any significant way. Those few who did cover it simply quoted the old allegations, all the ones rejected by the English jury. It was an utterly mystifying lapse but one consistant with the generally dreadful quality of big newsmedia reporting on the elements of the war on terror.

On June 20th, Paul Donovan blogging at the Guardian on the fate of those swept up during the arrests which led to the fiasco of the ricin ring trial:

"Two Algerian men have been so driven to distraction as a result of being detained without trial for an indeterminate amount of time that they have agreed to return to a country where they could face torture and possible death. They have been brought to this position by the Guantanamo style conditions imposed on them by the British government since 9/11 . . .

For months, the government has been attempting to get a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Algeria in order to deport the men back to that country. The MOU is intended to guarantee their safety on return, though their lawyers and human rights bodies like Amnesty International do not believe this to be worth the paper it is written on. Given they fled as refugees for fear of their lives in the first place, if Algeria is safe to return why the need for a piece of paper to guarantee it? On a recent trip to Algeria it was reported that the Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells, secured such an understanding but it will not be made public until the Algerian president visits the UK on July 9.

The problems started for many of the men following 9/11. They were initially detained without trial under the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001. Then after the law lords ruled in December 2004 that this was unlawful they were put on control orders. After the London bombings they were re-arrested prior to being served notice of deportation by the Home Office. A number of the men cleared in the so-called ricin trial where no ricin was found were also processed in the same way. Since then some have remained in prison and a number have been bailed under control order style conditions.

One man has told how "a control order is like being in a space capsule isolated from the world ... It is not physical torture but mental - driving you to madness ... It is torture for the family, paying the price for what they didn't do ... A control order is a punishment for someone who hasn't been convicted of anything . . .

. . . The return of the first two Algerians was heralded on the BBC as the triumph for Home Office anti-terror policy. What a triumph? Most of the implementation of government policy has been carried out quietly behind the scenes, supervised by a growing secret state operating within the state.

Many who have been subjected to this treatment believe it is an experiment that will be pushed further forward once they have gone. People in this country were quick to condemn the Soviet Union and other countries for such behaviour over the years, why the silence now when it is going on in our own back yard, run by our government in our names?

Read the original, A Sad Day for Human Rights.