Hundred bin Laden terrorists in UK
LONDON, Sunday (Reuters) - More than 100 "Osama bin Laden-trained terrorists" are
on the streets of Britain, determined to carry out mass attacks, the
country's former top policeman said in an article for a Sunday
newspaper.
Sir John Stevens, who retired as chief of London's
Metropolitan Police earlier this year, said it would be "madness" to
free foreigners held under an anti-terrorism law that judges ruled
illegal last year.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is trying to pass new
anti-terrorism measures that would allow house arrest, before the old
measures expire on March 14.
The old measures, enacted in the wake of the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks on the United States, allow foreigners to be held
indefinitely without charge, but the Law Lords ruled last year that the
powers violate basic rights.
The new measures, which would allow British citizens and
foreigners alike to be held under house arrest without charge, barely
passed in parliament's elected House of Commons last week and could
flounder in the House of Lords upper chamber. |
