Human rights campaigners attack Tory MP arrest
Damian Green was held for nine hours but was not charged
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Friday, 28, Nov 2008 07:42
The decision to arrest shadow immigration minister Damian Green has come under attack from civil rights campaigners.
Mr Green was arrested on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office" after a series of Home Office leaks. He was released yesterday evening after nine hours in police custody.
Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti said: "The fundamental duty of the Metropolitan police is to protect Londoners from harm, not the government from political embarrassment.
"Sending nine counter-terror officers to search and arrest an opposition politician who poses no flight risk leaves the Met with a great deal of explaining to do in due course."
Liberty wants to know why criminal law is being used to deal with the issue in the absence of a national security or official secrets implication.
It queries why a sitting MP was arrested, rather than being invited to attend an interview like former prime minister Tony Blair.
And it questions whether the use of criminal justice tools to investigate an elected representative was in the public interest.
"Liberty has no intention in siding with any political party, still less of interfering with an ongoing police investigation, but we feel duty bound to raise important operational, legal and constitutional questions about this incident," Ms Chakrabarti added.
It is not yet clear whether ministers in the Home Office authorised the arrest. Conservative party leader David Cameron said this morning he believed "senior officials" were aware of the move.
Speaking at the Policy Exchange thinktank, he said: "It has come to an extraordinary pass when opposition politicians, questioning the government, calling it to account, making information available in the public interest, are being arrested.
"If this had happened in the 1930s Winston Churchill would have been arrested.
"If we routinely arrest politicians who have made public information that they'd been passed, Gordon Brown would have spent quite a lot of time at the police station."