Draft letter reveals Clarke's terrorism doubts
16 Sep 05
Released draft letter reveals doubts over Terrorism Bill detention powers
Charles Clarke has admitted doubts about his new Terrorism Bill.
The Home Secretary wrote to opposition parties about the policy yesterday, but the Home Office accidentally published a draft of the letter in which he expressed his reservations about extending the time terror suspects can be detained without charge from two weeks to three months.
In his draft he said: "I think the case for some extension is clear though I believe there is room for debate as to whether we should go as far as three months." However in the final version of his letter, Mr Clarke said that the three-month extension would only apply in very rare cases.
The bill proposes to ban the "glorification" of terrorism and creates new offences of committing acts preparatory to terrorism, giving or receiving terrorism training and the indirect incitement of terrorism.
Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman, said his party was "extremely sceptical" about the case for a three-month extension, while David Davis, the Conservative shadow home secretary, said ministers had not made a convincing case.
The main supporters of the extension are the police. Ken Jones, the Association of Chief Police Officers' terrorism spokesman, said it supported the case for change, saying the extension was necessary because of the complexity of investigations into terrorism.
The draft letter also confirmed that the government is considering legislation to allow investigators to make deals with terrorists in exchange for information. This would mean giving legal status to intelligence interviews where investigators could interrogate suspects with no lawyer present and no tape recording. The contents of these interviews would not be admissible in court, though they could lead to terrorist suspects receiving shorter sentences if convicted.
Mr Clarke's draft letter said: "Our preliminary legal advice is that such intelligence interviews would be legal but further work will be needed including drawing up codes of practice before any such interviews could take place."