Dies a quo, dies ad quem.

[pachapapa]

Oh Dear!

So a quick trip to Jordan may be just a moot point.[:P]

Looks like Theresa is not "au fait" with a "délai franc" and a "délai non franc".

Qatada's lawyers and the European Court naturally prefer a "délai franc".

Oh Dear!

[NormanH]

As Yvette Cooper said "When the Home Secretary

is accused of not knowing what day of the week it is, then confusion and

chaos have turned into farce. This farce has serious consequences –

additional delays, a greater risk Abu Qatada will be put out on bail and a

risk he will sue the Government.”

Of course this appalling incompetence   will be given an anti-Europe spin by the Tory media.

[pachapapa]

Carl Gardner's comments on the matter, developed in his blog are very "construeing".[:)]

http://www.headoflegal.com/

[Patf]

I'm normally a very calm person but this situation makes me furious! One reason being, how can a man like him afford a "team" of lawyers?

The legal costs must be horrendous. Perhaps they're financed by Al Qaeda, I hope not the UK tax payers, who are already paying to support him in prison.

I've read most of your link, ppp, and it seems that the legal decision is based on so many loopholes it surely can't stand.

[Araucaria]

One suggestion I saw was that Ms May asked her lawyer "what's the time limit for our appeal?", and the lawyer, who knew that it was either the 16th or the 17th (depending on one's ability to understand a long dead language), told her the 16th, so that if she decided to appeal, she couldn't possibly be out of time.

It didn't seem very likely that Qatada himself would want to appeal, as he'd won at the European Court back in January.

May then assumed that if the time limit for her appeal was the 16th, it would be the same for him - perhaps she didn't listen too carefully when the lawyer mumbled something about there being some doubt about the exact date.

[EDIT] I see that is in the link Pacapapa posted - sorry!

Indeed, both dates might have been right. If the language were genuinely ambiguous, the court would be required to favour the person claiming his human rights were at issue: so the limit for May's appeal (if she had made one) might have been the 16th, and for Qatada it would have been the 17th.

[idun]

What I don't get is the human rights thing. This man is against human rights for the rest of us, especially us women, so how is he allowed to claim anything under any sort human rights act. I have a feeling that this human rights court in Europe would, if confronted with Hit ler, say he was a very naughty boy, but we couldn't do anything to him or 'he' didn't want, as we would be infringing his 'human rights'.

 

And who is paying for this legal team, us probably, although I will be happy to be told I am wrong.

If it is 'us', then there should be a plafond on how much can be spent on lawyers.

 

 

[Russethouse]

I believe he has Legal Aid.....why the British taxpayer should help him when he'd happily see us in hell, goodness knows....

However Ms Cooper has no real right to criticise, Labour failed to expel him during their term of office....[6]

[Frederick]

It appears France can remove people  while their appeals to the UCHR are under way. It seems the appeal is made from the country they have been deported to and if they win then France will be instructed to accept them back .

[Araucaria]

Making sure that we treat people we like in accordance with their human rights is normally pretty easy.

It's how we treat the people we dislike (the scumbags, to coin a phrase) that shows how civilised we are.

[Russethouse]

He isn't someone we merely dislike, he's a threat to the security of this country!

[pachapapa]

[quote user="Russethouse"]

I believe he has Legal Aid.....why the British taxpayer should help him when he'd happily see us in hell, goodness knows....

However Ms Cooper has no real right to criticise, Labour failed to expel him during their term of office....[6]

[/quote]

from the Indypendant...

                                       a north London firm of legal aid solicitors had been able to "outwit" the Government's highly paid barristers.[:-))]

[powerdesal]

I am sure there would be many volunteers to award him a 9mm FMJ form of aid on the basis of 'service to the community'

[PaulT]

All totally and utterly ridiculous. As a UK taxpayer it horrifies me that someone with his record can carry on defeating legitimate governments, especially when they are against the country that they are located in.

However, does it not demonstrate how idiotic the European courts are.

If this Government want to show some balls, kick him out and take the French way of dealing with edicts from Europe - ignore them.

[NormanH]

[quote user="PaulT"]

All totally and utterly ridiculous. As a UK taxpayer it horrifies me that someone with his record can carry on defeating legitimate governments, especially when they are against the country that they are located in.

However, does it not demonstrate how idiotic the European courts are.

If this Government want to show some balls, kick him out and take the French way of dealing with edicts from Europe - ignore them.

[/quote]

Exactly as I predicted above! Ministerial incompetence being blamed on Europe.

[Edward Trunk]

He has committed no offence in the UK, he has broken no laws. He is wanted in other countries, whose attitude to the rule of law, the use of torture, etc, is more relaxed than ours. He may be everything his critics say he is, but he entitled to the protection of the law, and our willingness to afford it to him is what marks us out from tyrannies. The war criminals who were hanged at Nuremberg had been tried in an open court after they had been defended by lawyers of their own choosing. Have our standards dropped so far since then?

[Araucaria]

It's probably not worth saying that the Court in question has nothing to do with the EU.

Speaking just for myself, I would rather that the court upheld the principle that we shouldn't send anyone at all (not even someone who is "a threat to the security of this country!")

to be tried in a country that regularly tortures prisoners to extract a confession. It's not very likely that I might one day be on the receiving end, but you never know.

Sooner or later, those countries might stop torturing the innocent and guilty alike, if they know that Europe won't extradite suspects there. Suspects who may in fact be more of a threat to their security than to ours.

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Edward Trunk"]

He has committed no offence in the UK, he has broken no laws. He is wanted in other countries, whose attitude to the rule of law, the use of torture, etc, is more relaxed than ours. He may be everything his critics say he is, but he entitled to the protection of the law, and our willingness to afford it to him is what marks us out from tyrannies. The war criminals who were hanged at Nuremberg had been tried in an open court after they had been defended by lawyers of their own choosing. Have our standards dropped so far since then?

[/quote]

Edward, my understanding of the various newspaper reports is that he has in fact committed offences in UK, he achieved entry on a false passport and has subsequently advocated violence against the UK. Both these would seem to be offences - are they not?

I cannot link to a source and hence could be wrong.

[Edward Trunk]

If powerdesal is correct, and he has committed offences, why has he not been charged and tried?

[Keni]

If he goes, do his wives and children go as well, or does the UK keep supporting them?

I understand he also does not recognise the court of the 'infidel', and although he happily takes everything he's entitled to, and most probably more than that, (most probably) he would happily kill all of us. So why not just dump him as he would everyone else? Human Rights issues in this situation I agree are not part of his remit and therefore Ms.May should just throw him out on all those charges mentioned aforesaid.

[Araucaria]

The Golden Rule, anyone?

[Quillan]

He came to the UK in 1994 on a forged UAE passport which was spotted on entry. He then claimed asylum on religious persecution ground and permission was given for him to stay. He was arrested in 2001 because of his alleged connections with a German terrorist cell but was released due to lack of evidence. The place used in Germany by the 9/11 terrorists had videos of him preaching as did the apartment in Madrid used by the Madrid bombers. He is under the world wide embargo by the UN security council. He has committed no crime in the UK and has been held twice under the Anti Terrorist laws because he is suspected of being the spiritual advisor to Al Qaeda terrorists in Europe but never proved to the satisfaction of the court i.e. not enough evidence

The UK can't send him back to Jordan because they have signed up to two things namely the Council of Europe European courts declaration of human rights which includes rules on sending people back to countries where torture is commonly used and also the the UN convention against torture which ironically the USA has signed up to as well yet it is well documented that they torture suspected terrorists.

He has a wife and 5 children. According to Boris Johnson he and his family have cost the UK something in the region of £500k to date, that excludes and legal fees.

In 1998 the UK parliament voted to include the European courts declaration of human rights, driven by Blair's wife, in to English law. France has not so yes if he was in France they could and most likely would be deported back to Jordan.

The idea of the European declaration of human rights and its court came from Winston Churchill after WW2 based on the idea that it would protect all European citizens from the type of things that went on under the Germans during WW2. The UK was one of the first to sign up to it in 1951.

David Cameron, in my opinion is right in that the UK either needs to remove or change part of these laws in the UK or remove them. Whilst 'Winnie' probably never foresaw that this type of thing could happen and thought he was doing the right thing at the tme he would probably be turning in hs grave and shouting "NO thats not what I intended it to be used for".

[powerdesal]

Quillan, you say he entered the UK on a forged passport, surely that in itself is a crime in the UK. He should never have been allowed into UK in the first place having false travel documents, asylum claim or not.

[Edward Trunk]

Couldn't we make him Archbishop of Canterbury? He already has the beard and the robes; he delivers a fiery sermon; his views on women and gays would please the traditionalists; he wouldn't believe in the 39 Articles, but then, neither do most Anglican clergy. Rowan Williams could slide out of the pulpit and he could slide in. It would spice up the C of E no end. Perfect.

[Russethouse]

 Slightly off topic, but what makes me mad about this is that one of my my mothers carers (actually the best one) who is Bulgarian was terrified she would be deported because a condition of her residence here was that she work as a domestic, she was concerned that being a carer may not count, and she would be deported ( she has now passed her citizenship test ) Because of this she didn't claim things that she was legitimately entitled too regarding tax..on the other hand we have we have this man costing the UK tax payer a fortune, preaching against us, and we don't seem to be able to rid ourselves of him......it's crazy !

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"]Quillan, you say he entered the UK on a forged passport, surely that in itself is a crime in the UK. He should never have been allowed into UK in the first place having false travel documents, asylum claim or not.[/quote]

I probably didn't word it properly. He attempted to enter, when they told him he couldn't he then asked for asylum. If one makes the assumption that he came from the UAE irregardless of the fact his passport was a fake or that he came on a flight from Jordan he might be really from Jordanian (which he is by birth) then they could not send him to either country as they both use torture (according to the UN).

Just as a point of interest six countries, USA, Britain, Canada, France, Sweden and Kyrgyzstan will later this year be tried by the UN for 'outsourcing torture. The case has been made by Manfred Nowak (works for the UN investigating torture) who claim all these countries broke the UN Convention Against Torture which states in article 3 "clearly and unequivocally" that "No State party shall expel, return ('refouler') or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be danger of being subjected to torture.".

So basically its the pot calling the kettle black and really I see no reason why this man, and his family, are not just put on a plane and sent packing back to Jordan and sod the fine if there is one.