Radical cleric held without trial in Britain wins compensation

Feb 19, 2009, 13:00 GMT

London - A radical Muslim cleric held in Britain without trial Thursday won 2,500 pounds (3,600 dollars) in compensation from the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that his human rights had been breached.

The financial - and psychological - legal victory for Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian cleric, came just a day after the British Law Lords ruled that he could be deported to Jordan where he is wanted on terrorism charges.

However, in response to Wednesday's ruling, lawyers for the 48- year-old took the deportation case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, delaying government plans to remove him.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said Thursday she was 'very disappointed' with the compensation awarded to Qatada and 10 other terrorism suspects held without trial in Britain under anti-terrorism legislation adopted in the wake of the September 2001 attacks in the United States.

The judges ruled that the British government had breached three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to liberty, the right for lawfulness of detention to be decided by a court and the right to compensation for unlawful detention.

But they rejected a fourth complaint, ruling that the detention of Qatada did not amount to 'torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.'

However, the ruling is an acute embarrassment for the British government, which has long been been accused by civil rights campaigners of flouting human rights over the detention of foreign terrorism suspects without trial.

Qatada, who has lived in Britain since 1993, was first arrested in 2002, and has been held in prisons or under home curfew on and off since then.

The Law Lords, Britain's highest appeal court, ruled Wednesday that he could be deported to Jordan despite fears that he would not receive a fair trial and could be subjected to torture.

The British government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOA) with Jordan and other Middle Eastern and North African countries in 2005, in which governments pledged that terrorism suspects would not be tortured.

The European Court also awarded pay-outs of between 1,500 and 3,400 pounds to 10 other suspects who were detained in Britain following the US attacks on suspicion of having provided support for extremists linked to al-Qaeda.

They include Abu Rideh, a Palestinian refugee who was detained in December 2001 and Djamal Ajouaou, a Moroccan national, accused of being connected to two other terror suspects.

Of the others, who cannot be named for legal reasons, six are Algerian, one Tunisian and one French. They were held in prison without charge until 2005 and subsequently released under so-called control orders.

The British authorities have maintained that Qatada cannot be put on trial in Britain because 'methods of intelligence gathering' could be compromised in such a trial.