Human rights makes UK a 'safe haven' for suspected terrorists

| Mail Online

Human rights rulings make the UK a 'safe haven' for suspected foreign terrorists, the independent reviewer of anti-terror laws warned today.

Lord Carlile said the dismissal of the Government's argument that the risk of ill treatment on deportation for foreign nationals had to be balanced against the threat they posed when they are allowed to stay in Britain caused problems.

'The effect is to make the UK a safe haven for some individuals whose determination is to damage the UK and its citizens - hardly a satisfactory situation save for the purist,' he said.

In his annual review of counter-terror legislation published today, Lord Carlile backed the Government's attempts to deport suspected foreign terrorists with assurances over their treatment once returned home.

But he warned that it was a 'time-consuming process, requiring assurances that are public, credible and reliable'.

Even once agreed, 'there is no guarantee that the courts will accept them, given the relatively low legal threshold required for an individual to avoid deportation', he said.

The Government has argued that, where a person seeks to resist removal on the grounds of the risk of ill-treatment in their home country, this may be balanced against the threat they pose to national security if they remain.