'Madrid attack' averted in London
Police have prevented a terror attack in London on the scale of the Madrid bombings, according to a police chief. Speaking to BBC London on Thursday, Met Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens said terrorism was a major issue for the UK capital. He said a number of terror attacks had been thwarted and hundreds of people were going through the courts. 'The risk of an attack to London has not changed; an attack is still inevitable,' he said. 'Thank God to date, and we have had to work extremely hard, we've thwarted attacks, ' he added. We've driven down gun crime but I think there has been a move over to knives When asked if the force had stopped an attack on the scale of Madrid he said: 'Yes, I can't discuss it because of court proceedings but yes we have stopped a Madrid.'I suspect that similar successes have occured in this country, and have had to be kept secret as well for a variety of reasons.
posted by Dave Justus | 12/10/2004 09:15:00 AM
6 Comments:
Hmm. Large hand full of salt, check; foil helmet in plance and properly earthed, check; reality meter set to minimum gain to prevent overloading, check; right...
http://www.cumbria-online.co.uk/viewarticle.asp?id=156133
It has been in the news off and on since 9/11.
There is one thing certain. The "hundreds that have been arrested" will keep the Courts busy in Britain for, oh about, the next 50 years.
How do I work that out? Easy. The charges will centre on terrorism and participation. Not one of those arrested will want to be in Court with any of the others for obvious reasons. The charges will be serious with extensive prison sentences for the guilty. That will mean selection of trial by jury, appeals, the whole rigmarole.
So, let us say; one week for pre-hearing, minimum four weeks for trial, appeal hearings might take another three weeks in the High Court. Total of eight weeks. If there are only one hundred charged, that by my calculations will commit one line of the British Justice system to 800 weeks of hearings or just short of sixteen continuous years.
Heard any noises of panic from the British Parliament about the effects this might have on the British Courts, or the additional cost?
No, I thought not.
I certainly don't know anything about the capacity of the British court system. In the U.S. 800 weeks of court time (or 8000 weeks) would pretty much just be a drop in the bucket. Also, I would expect that for many of these cases there might well not be enough evidence for a trial, but enough evidence to deport someone to their native country.
For example, if Mohammed Atta had been brought in a couple weeks before Sept. 11th and the authorities had realized his terror ties (something the FBI did know) he would have been sent packing (and probably his associates too) even if their hadn't been enough evidence to prove to a jury that he planned to fly a plane into a building. This would have thwarted the terror attack, but not resulted in any convictions or much court time.
While it is certainly more likely that a terrorist would be tried post-9/11 I am sure there are still many similar events.
Another possibility of course is for the nvestigators/prosecutors to offer low level guys they catch a deal, exchanging information for avoiding a prison term. Since counter-terrorist is even more intelligence driven than ordinary law inforcement, I expect this is a fairly common occurance as well, and one that we don't know much about for good reason.
This is something you mentioned earlier over at my blog, and is dead-on. Without several levels of security clearance, there is no way of knowing half of what takes place behind the scenes. As the CIA's mantra goes, "The public hears about all of our failures, and none of our successes." I'm sure it's the same for counter-terrorism across the board.
"...he would have been sent packing (and probably his associates too) even if their hadn't been enough evidence to prove to a jury that he planned to fly a plane into a building. This would have thwarted the terror attack, but not resulted in any convictions or much court time...Hmm, yeah. We in NZ should have done the same with Ahmed Zhaoui? Good idea! We'll just ship him on to the US. Let them deal with him.
As a serious thought for you, what value does your comment place upon your justice system? No evidence, no trial even, no time, just ship 'em on out. Who comes next, Dave? Non-believers?
"Another possibility of course is for the nvestigators/prosecutors to offer low level guys they catch a deal, exchanging information for avoiding a prison term. Since counter-terrorist is even more intelligence driven than ordinary law inforcement, I expect this is a fairly common occurance as well, and one that we don't know much about for good reason""Deported without trial to the country of their choice." As the local beer ad down here says - "Yeah, right!".
Mind you, with the "problem" that the US has with Guantanamo Bay it would not surprise me in the least as a solution...
"Say the majic words kiddo and we let you go...come on, repeat after me..."I was seduced by Osama bin Laden, anally raped by him personally, and given a gun to shoot americans."
Yeah, right!
Generally speaking you don't need any evidence or a trail to deport someone. Non-citizens do not have a right to be in another country, so you can send them home if you don't want them there, basically without any reason. Personally, I don't have a problem with that. I understand that New Zealand (for example) has some very strict immigration laws so the U.S. is hardly alone in sending people they don't want in their country back home.
As for trading information in exchange for a lighter sentence or perhaps avoiding punishment altogether, that has a long tradition in both law enforcement and counter-espionage activities. Regardless of what you may think about Gauntanamo, it really has nothing to do with this particular issue.
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