British Govt planning tough new anti-terror legislation

BRITAIN: British police could be given new powers to stop and question individuals without suspecting a crime has taken place under new anti terrorism legislation being drafted, the Home Office said.

The new powers - which have been applied in Northern Ireland - would allow police to stop and interrogate individuals about who they are, where they are coming from and where they intend to go.

The proposal is set to be part of a new anti terrorism bill being prepared by outgoing Home Secretary John Reid.

"We are considering a range of measures for the Bill and 'stop and question' is one of them," said a Home Office spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Under present legislation, the police have the right to stop and search individuals on "reasonable grounds for suspicion" they have committed an offense but have no rights to ask for their identity and movements.

Stop and question legislation has never been used on the British mainland during peacetime.

The announcement coincides with an attack by Prime Minister Tony Blair on critics of the government's approach to tackling terrorism.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Blair- who quits as prime minister on June 27- delivered a broadside at opposition lawmakers, campaigners and members of the judiciary who he accused of putting civil liberties before the security of the population.

I believe this is a dangerous misjudgment," he wrote in an editorial. On Thursday Blair revived a plan for jailing terror suspects without trial after three men suspected of planning to carry out terrorist attacks overseas eluded police monitoring and absconded.

Britain's "control order" system - a partial house arrest created after judges ruled against government legislation that detained suspects indefinitely without trial - has been "much weaker than we wanted, perpetually diluted by opposition amendments, constantly attacked on civil liberty grounds," Blair said.

Blair suffered his first major domestic defeat in 2005 when lawmakers, including members of his Labour Party, rejected his plan to allow police to hold terrorism suspects for up to 90 days without charging them with an offense and the government has been constantly overruled by the judiciary in attempts to deport foreign nationals it suspects of being engaged in extremist activities.

Judges ruled that deporting foreign nationals to countries where they risked being tortured contravened the European Convention on Human Rights- legislation Reid said Britain could consider opting out of.

Blair said any criticism that the government was not being hard enough on tackling terrorism was misguided.

"So when there is an outcry about the three absconding, we should remember that consistently over the past few years ... attempts to introduce stronger powers have been knocked back in the courts and parliament," Blair said.

He said the terror threat faced by Britain is incomparable to anything that has come before and must be "confronted with every means at our disposal."

Under control orders, suspects can be electronically tagged, kept under curfew, denied the use of telephones or the Internet and barred from meeting with others.

lair's government created the system after Britain's highest court ruled in 2004 that holding suspects in prison without trial was unlawful.

Those monitored under the control-order system are deemed a risk to national security, but face no criminal charges. Evidence against them is often classified on security grounds, and civil rights campaigners say too little effort is made to prosecute the suspects - which would allow them to challenge the allegations.

The plans for the new terrorism legislation will be unveiled in the next few weeks.

London, Sunday, AP