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Top 'terrorism suspect' freed in Britain: report
The British government has released a man it considers a top dangerous terrorist suspect from virtual house arrest, possibly to avoid disclosing secret evidence against him, a report said on Monday.
The British government has released a man it considers a top dangerous terrorist suspect from virtual house arrest, possibly to avoid disclosing secret evidence against him, a report said on Monday.
The unnamed man has been closely monitored and his movements severely restricted since 2006 because of his alleged links with Islamic terrorists, although he has never been charged, the Times said.
His control order, which confines him to his home for 16 hours a day, was revoked last week and his electronic monitoring tag removed, despite government claims that he remains a threat, the newspaper said.
The man, who has dual Libyan and British nationality, and is known only as AF, was one of three suspects who won a landmark legal ruling in July that their control order was illegal.
The law lords ruled that the suspects had been denied a fair hearing prior to detention because they had not been given details of the cases against them.
The ruling opened the way for up to 20 men held under control orders to challenge their detention and to seek to know the cases against them.
The newspaper said the government was faced with either disclosing secret intelligence, with, what it considers, the risk of jeopardising intelligence sources or methods, or of releasing the men.
The man's solicitor received a letter last month saying that the Home Secretary Alan Johnson was revoking the control order, although no reason was given, according to the Times.
"The Home Secretary has some explaining to do. Does he now accept that there was no need for the control order which imposed severe restrictions on AF . . . or does he still think there is a need for controls but is unwilling to provide details of the allegations against AF?" his barrister David Pannick said.
