From The Telegraph, with thanks to Ruth King:
The Home Secretary was “disappointed” yesterday after Siac, the special anti-terrorist court, decided not to send a man with alleged al-Qa’eda links back to prison.
The 35-year-old Algerian had been released on house arrest after suffering a mental breakdown in custody.
Charles Clarke’s counsel had told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission that the suspected terrorist, known as G, had breached bail conditions under which he was confined to his home and denied unapproved visits.
But, after a closed hearing, Mr Justice Collins ruled that Mr Clarke had failed to prove “to the necessary standard” that G had wrongly received two unidentified visitors in November.
The Home Secretary’s response, in a prepared statement handed out by a Home Office press officer before G himself had even left the courtroom, was treated with “contempt” by Gareth Peirce, G’s solicitor.
She said that if the Home Office could make a mistake about her client breaching his bail conditions once, it could do so again.
Likening the risk of bail being wrongly withdrawn to the “sword of Damocles hanging over anyone’s head”, she said it was the “ultimate nightmare” for her client to be at the mercy of secret evidence that he was unable to disprove.
G attended the hearing yesterday with his wife. He was not required to sit in the secure dock.
Although Siac concluded in October 2003 that G had “actively assisted terrorists who have links to al-Qa’eda”, he was released from Belmarsh prison into house arrest last April after his continued detention caused a “serious relapse” in his mental condition. He was suffering from a “depressive illness”.