Author: H S Rao
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: October 12, 2001
A UK-based Pakistani Muslim cleric,
accused of recruiting British Muslims for terrorist training and raising
money to fund a 'holy war' in Kashmir, is to be deported to Pakistan. According
to security service investigators, Rehman (34) had raised funds for the
Lashkar-E-Toiba in Britain while working for its political wing, Markaz
Ad-Da'wah Wal Irshad.
Delivering the verdict, Law Lord
Hoffman of the House of Lords clarified that his judgement on Shafiq-ur-Rehman
had been written three months before the attacks on the United States.
"They are a reminder that in matters of national security, the cost of
failure can be high... This seems to me to underline the need for the judicial
arm of government to respect the decisions of ministers of the Crown on
the question of whether support for terrorist activities in a foreign country
constitutes a threat to national security."
The decision is a victory for the
then home secretary and current Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who in 1997
had ordered that Rehman, who was working as an imam in a mosque in Oldham
in northern England, he deported on the ground that he was a threat to
national security.
The special Immigration Appeals
Commission, which had initially heard Shafiq's case, had said he was not
a threat to British national security. But in their ruling, the law Lords
said the commission had adopted too narrow a definition of what national
security involved.
Shafiq's lawyer Amjad Malik said
he was considering an appeal to the European Court. Rather than prosecute
suspected terrorists under the Terrorism Act, the British government believed
it was "easier" to simply deport them, said malik.
"National security will therefore,
be used as a tool to be rid of people whom the government thinks are unsafe.
It means that people in Britain cannot raise their concerns about their
brothers in Kashmir, Palestine or Chechnya as that will be considered as
participating in activities not considered safe by the secretary of state,"
he said.
Malik claimed Shafiq was being "punished"
for refusing British intelligence agency MI5's attempts to recruit him
as an agent.
