From the New Duranty Times:
LONDON, July 20 – Britain took the first step today toward deporting firebrand clerics to Arab and other countries, striking a preliminary agreement with Jordan that could lead to the expulsion of a suspected close ally of Osama bin Laden.
After the London bombings, the move was the latest sign that – belatedly in the eyes of its critics – Britain is cranking up antiterrorist procedures, moving away from a longstanding policy of offering sanctuary to Muslim radicals who might face torture or the death penalty in their own countries.
Britain’s home secretary, Charles Clarke, also said he had authorized a global list of suspects likely to be expelled from or barred entry into Britain if they were found to be “preaching, running a Web site or writing articles which are intended to foment or provoke terrorism.”
The measures against what the police here call “preachers of hate” follow years of taunts by foreign intelligence services that British tolerance of radical clerics and terror suspects wanted in other places had turned London into “Londonistan” or “Beirut-on-Thames.”…