'Secret' detainee tells of jail despair
Terror suspect held for two years says he suffered mental breakdown that led to
transfer to Broadmoor from high-security prison
Sarah Boseley
Saturday December 20, 2003
The Guardian
A man detained in Britain without charge or trial for two years on the basis of secret
evidence he can neither know about nor challenge has told of his despair at his
treatment under anti-terrorist legislation.
Exactly two years after he was arrested at his family home in the early hours and
taken to Belmarsh high-security prison, Mahmoud Abu Rideh is the first of 14 detainees
held on suspicion of terrorism to speak out publicly, through a letter sent to the
Guardian.
In it, he tells of his horror at his arrest, his humiliation in prison and the
deterioration of his mental health. He has now been moved to the high-security
Broadmoor psychiatric hospital.
The home secretary, David Blunkett, says the detainees are all suspected international
terrorists with links to al-Qaida or related groups and that the anti-terrorist
legislation under which they are held, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks
on New York and Washington, is essential to safeguard the public.
Human rights groups, however, have condemned detentions based on secret evidence
without a criminal trial. On Thursday, the privy counsellors review committee, a
cross-party group of MPs set up by Mr Blunkett, which spent 18 months reviewing the
act, called for it to be scrapped.
Mr Blunkett alleges Mr Abu Rideh has been involved with associates of Osama bin Laden
and was a fundraiser for terrorist purposes. Mr Abu Rideh, a Palestinian who denies
the allegations, says in his letter to the Guardian that he hates terrorism and that
he was arrested without warning or explanation at his home in Surrey on December 17
2001, two months after the 9/11 attacks.
"The British security services arrested me at 5.30 in the morning. They broke the door
while I am sleeping and scared my children - I have five children between the ages of
three years and nine years." He was taken straight to Belmarsh prison in south-east
London, with no access to a lawyer.
"At 7 o'clock in the morning they told me that you are going to stay all your life in
Belmarsh. There is a unit inside it, it is like a prison in the prison. They put me
alone in a small room where you face bad treatment and racism and humiliation and
biting and swearing.
"They prevented us from going to Friday prayers and every 24 hours there is only one
hour walk in front of the cells and half an hour walking inside a cage. You do not see
sun. You cannot tell whether it is night or day. Every thing is dark."
Mr Abu Rideh claims his experiences since his arrest are an indictment of Britain. "Is
this the civilisation of London? Is this Europe civilisation in the 21st century?" It
was a month before he was allowed to call a lawyer and six months before he saw his
wife and children.
Seventeen men have been detained under emergency measures passed since September 11.
The introduction of the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act meant Britain had to
suspend its obligations under the European human rights convention, which guarantees
the right to liberty.
The act covers only foreign nationals and allows the home secretary to detain them in
high-security prisons indefinitely. The detainees have the right to leave the UK at
any time. Two have done so and are fighting an appeal from abroad. One has been
removed from the UK under other legislation.
Others are refugees or asylum seekers and the government acknowledges it cannot deport
them because they could be in danger in their home country. Lawyers for 10 of the men
have lodged appeals against their detention. In October, the Special Immigration
Appeals Commission upheld the home secretary's decision to detain them after hearings
where much of the evidence was given in private.
Mr Abu Rideh, who lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan after leaving Palestine, was well
known in the Islamic community for his charitable activities, including setting up
schools and digging wells, which may have led him into contact with extremists. But,
say his lawyers, his voluble personality meant he was open about his work and the
people he met.
He had a history of mental illness before he was arrested. In his Guardian letter he
says that in Belmarsh "my mental health became worse and worse and they moved me to
[Broadmoor] where they put the most dangerous criminals in Britain - people who commit
crimes like murder and rape of children".
Amnesty International's UK director, Kate Allen, said yesterday: "The home secretary
has created something close to a Guantanamo Bay in our own backyard." The cases of Mr
Abu Rideh and the other 13 detainees were in defiance of basic human rights.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office said she could not comment, but said the detainees
would be held under the same conditions as all other Belmarsh prisoners.
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