Historic stand against torture and death penalty

‘They wouldn’t be sent. I am absolutely clear’

THE British government has for years refused to extradite terror suspects to the US unless it first received an assurance that the death penalty would not be exercised.

Despite pressure in the wake of 9/11 and the launch of the War on Terror, successive home secretaries have not budged on the policy. Terror suspects have also resisted deportation to countries where it is feared they will be subjected to torture.

The UK Government has also opposed detention in Guantánamo Bay and paid out £20million in compensation to 17 British citizens and residents who were held in the facility but never charged with any crime. One of those – Jamal al-harith, who was born Ronald Fiddler in Manchester – travelled to Syria after his release from Guantánamo and eventually died in Iraq, carrying out a suicide bomb attack for Isil.

The assurance by Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, that the UK will not stand in the way of the death penalty for Alexanda Kotey and Shafee El-sheikh, nor object to their being held in Guantánamo, sends a clear signal that their crimes are so repulsive, ministers will not intervene on their behalf.

In the aftermath of 9/11, the first test of British government resolve came with the US demand to extradite Lofti Raissi, an Algerian airline pilot living in the UK, over allegations – completely unfounded – that he had trained the 9/11 hijackers.

It was an entirely false accusation, but Mr Raissi would spend five months in Belmarsh high security jail, facing extradition to the US and the death penalty. The courts freed him after the US failed to produce any evidence and Mr Raissi was awarded compensation for wrongful detention.

The Government’s position was underlined in 2003 with the signing of a new extradition treaty with the US. David Blunkett, then the home secretary, went out of his way to stress that terror suspects facing the death sentence would not be deported. “They wouldn’t be sent,” aid Mr Blunkett, “I am absolutely clear.”

There were other test cases in the war on terror. Babar Ahmad, a computer expert from south London, successfully resisted extradition to the US for eight years, spending the time a in a UK prison without trial. Charles Clarke, home secretary at the time, had approved his deportation in 2005, having sought and received assurances that Ahmad would not be executed if found guilty of supporting terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

The case became a cause célèbre, and eventually, in 2012, Ahmad was extradited and subsequently sentenced in 2014 to 12 and a half years in jail. But with all the time already served, he was released within a year. The Home Office found it had a problem with foreign terror suspects it could not expel but also did not have the evidence to put on trial in this country.

It came up with a new plan: ‘Deportation With Assurances’ that they would not be tortured or given the death penalty.

Britain’s opposition to the death penalty is reinforced by being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits torture and which guarantees a right to life.