Setback for govt as control order revoked
Alan Johnson's Home Office has received yet another setback with control orders
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By Richard James. |  |
Thursday, 24, Sep 2009 05:05
By Richard James.
The government's controversial control order scheme has received yet another setback with the news a terror suspect, known only as AE, has seen his order revoked.
The suspect is thought to be an Iraqi Kurd who had been subjected to the control order for the last three and a half years.
The House of Lords ruled back in June that individuals subject to control orders had to be given details of the case and evidence being brought against them to allow effective legal representation.
Following the revoking of AE's order, there are now 14 control orders in place in Britain.
A Home Office spokesperson said the government did not comment on individual cases, but declared: "In June 2009 the House of Lords ruled that individuals subject to control orders must be given sufficient disclosure about the case against them to enable them to give effective instructions to their legal representatives.
"Where this disclosure cannot be made for the protection of the public interest, including our national security, we may be forced to revoke control orders even where we consider those orders to be necessary to protect the public from a risk of terrorism."
They added: "As the government has made clear on numerous occasions, when dealing with suspected terrorists, prosecution is - and will continue to be - our preferred approach. Where we cannot prosecute, and the individual concerned is a foreign national, we look to detain and then deport them.
"For those we cannot either prosecute or deport, our assessment has been that control orders are the best available disruptive tool for managing the risk they pose. The revocation of AE's control order does not change this assessment."
Control order involve people "of interest" and deemed to be a danger to the state placed under strict restrictions such as curfews and electronic tagging.