Note: A graphic example of how cheaply British citizenship is given away. RHBBC
Surrey
5 February 2012 Last updated at 11:32Taufeek Khanjar becomes 'oldest' new British citizen
Taufeek Khanjar, is originally from Iraq and worked as a jewellery maker in Baghdad
A 104-year-old man is thought to be the oldest person to have become a new British citizen.
Taufeek Khanjar, who is originally from Iraq and worked as a jewellery maker in Baghdad, came to the UK six years ago to live with his daughter.After a ceremony at Surrey County Council's headquarters, he said he was "very happy" to be a British citizen.He said the secret to a long and healthy life was "never get stressed and be relaxed".He said: "I never lose my temper and whatever happens I take it in my own stride."If the world capsized I still wouldn't strain myself.Oath to the Queen"I keep busy by watching television, playing cards, reading and listening to music. I also like to repair watches and other broken items."The widower lives with his daughter Nada Dabis, 59, in South Cheam, south London. He has four sons and two daughters.Surrey county councillor Denise Saliagopoulos said MrKhanjar was believed to be the oldest person to become a new British citizen.She said Mr Khanjar took an oath to the Queen, during the ceremony, and pledged that he would be a faithful citizen and obey the laws of the country.Ms Saliagopoulos said: "Mr Khanjar was immensely proud to become a British citizen."Everyone was delighted to play a part in making his dream come true."
Note: This is a real danger - see
The wages of Scottish independence – immigration
The Scots Numpty Party (SNP) fondly imagines that an independent Scotland would continue to have free access to England. They recklessly assume Scotland’s position would be akin to that of the Republic of Ireland. However, that assumption rests on a …Continue reading →RH
'Hadrian's Wall' customs if Scotland goes it alone to stop illegal migrants flooding into England
By BRENDAN CARLIN, MAIL ON SUNDAY POLITICAL REPORTER
Last updated at 11:56 PM on 4th February 2012
A Hadrian’s Wall-style border might have to be built to stop illegal migrants flooding into England if Scotland gets independence.
Other dramatic possible consequences would be David Cameron having to give up part of his £3 billion EU rebate, and the UK’s voting strength in Brussels being slashed.
The potential side-effects of Scotland breaking away are outlined in a Foreign Office memo leaked to The Mail on Sunday.
Alex Salmond is keen to hold a referendum on Scottish independence
The document refers to the remnants of the UK, were Scotland to go it alone, as the Orwellian-sounding ‘remaining-UK’.
The phrase has echoes of ‘the former Yugoslavia’ name given to the elements of the ex-Balkan state, such as Serbia and Kosovo, which became independent after a bloody civil war.
The briefing contradicts Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond’s claims that after independence the border could stay completely open.
The Foreign Office experts raise fears that a fully-fledged international border would be necessary because Scotland could be required to join the ‘Schengen’ open-borders system used by 25 European states which Britain has opted out of.
That would allow anyone to travel from continental Europe into Scotland without any internal border controls, meaning immigration and passport checks would be needed along the English/ Scottish border.
It would also mean Scotland would be ejected from the current ‘Common Travel Area’ comprising the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
The report says: ‘Article 8 of the Schengen Protocol requires all new EU member states to accept the Schengen “acquis” in full.
Hadrian's Wall on the English Scottish border at Northumberland was built when the two countries were divided
‘A strict application of this provision in negotiations with Scotland . . . would make it practically impossible for Scotland to remain part of the Common Travel Area.
‘Scotland would not, by virtue of its participation in Schengen, be able to maintain its own border controls on people entering Scotland from the Schengen area.’ The memo also states:
l Scotland would be forced to join the euro if it is regarded as a ‘new’ member by Brussels.
l The UK would lose influence in Brussels as its voting strength would diminish.
l Mr Cameron could be forced to surrender part of the UK’s £3 billion EU rebate to Scotland.
l The ‘remaining-UK’ may itself be forced to re-apply to join the EU.
The memo flies in the face of repeated claims by the Coalition that Scotland’s economy will suffer a hammer-blow if it cuts links with the rest of the UK.
It states: ‘Whether the economic effects for Scotland of independent EU membership would be beneficial or adverse, compared with the present position, cannot be determined without knowing the terms on which independent membership was agreed.’
The core arguments in the leaked document will be used by David Cameron's coalition government
The Foreign Office document is believed to date from 2009, under the last Labour Government.
However, its core arguments will still be used by the Coalition in opposition to Scottish independence before the referendum, which is expected in 2014.
The memo warns that the process of Scotland ‘re-joining’ the EU could take up to three years – potentially depriving the country of vital Brussels’ aid for the whole period.
It says: ‘EU law would require negotiation of the terms of independent Scotland’s membership of the EU since the treaties do not provide for an increase in the number of member states other than by treaty amendment.’
London could raise objections if the split were not ‘amicable’, the document warns. ‘Remaining-UK would have a veto and could decide to make life difficult,’ it says.
Scotland’s fate would also hang on the goodwill of ‘other member states – some of whom, with regional problems of their own, such as Spain, Belgium and Italy, might not be anxious to demonstrate that independence yielded EU benefits’.
The report warns that once back inside the EU, Scotland could apply for a slice of the UK’s Brussels budget rebate if the newly-independent state finds it is a ‘net contributor’ to EU funds.
Last night, a spokesman for Mr Salmond dismissed the memo’s contents as ‘tired old scare stories’ which were untrue and insulting to Scotland.
He said: ‘As legal, constitutional and European experts have confirmed, the reality is that Scotland is part of the territory of the EU and the people of Scotland are citizens of the EU.
‘There is no provision for either of these circumstances to change upon independence, and the rest of the UK will be exactly the same position. The border will be the same. There’ll be no barbed wire or checkpoints.’
Hadrian’s Wall was built along the border by the Romans from 122AD.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096650/Hadrians-Wall-customs-Scotland-goes-stop-illegal-migrants-flooding-England.html#ixzz1lV8CmuMiTelegraph
Brussels slams 'intolerant' Dutch website on migrants taking jobs
Brussels has warned that there is no place in the EU for an "intolerant" Dutch website that asks people to complain about jobs lost to migrants from Eastern Europe.
Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister who whose ruling coalition is dependent on support from Mr Wilders Photo: EPA/valerie kuypers4:48PM GMT 14 Feb 2012
The "hotline" site has been set up by the anti-immigrant Freedom Party to gather allegations of "nuisance and pollution" caused by an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 East European migrant workers from EU countries in Holland.The website invites respondents to tick "yes" or "no" when asked whether they have experienced loud noise, parking, drunkenness, squalor or "degeneracy" at the hands of migrants."Do you have trouble? Or have you lost your job to a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other Central or Eastern European? We would like to hear," the site asks.Viviane Reding, the EU's human rights commissioner has attacked the website and, hinting at possible legal action, warned "intolerance has no place on our continent"."Citizens of the 27 EU Member States should feel at home no matter where they decide to move. The website runs totally counter to these principles. It is openly calling for people to be intolerant," she said.Geert Wilders, the leader of the Freedom Party, the third largest in the Dutch parliament, dismissed the EU criticism."Europe can get stuffed. We've had more than 32,000 complaints. This website has really hit the mark. We're looking for facts, so talk about discrimination is fantasy and nonsense," he said.In a growing row, 10 ambassadors from East European countries have sent a letter of protest to the Dutch government, a minority coalition that relies on support from Mr Wilders for its majority in parliament.The letter, signed by ambassadors form countries including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania, warned that the website threatened Holland's image as a tolerant country."Targeting a selected group of people living in the Netherlands is clearly discriminatory and degrading in its intents and purposes. It encourages negative perception of a particular group of EU citizens within the Dutch society – a perception not supported by facts," the letter said."We invite Dutch society and its political leaders to distance themselves from this deplorable initiative."Gyula Sumeghy, the Hungarian ambassador to the Netherlands, told AFP: "It would probably help to calm the situation if the Dutch government could be a bit more articulate in this respect."Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister who whose ruling coalition is dependent on support from Mr Wilders, has remained silent on the issue. "The website is not of the Dutch government but of a political party," he said. "It's not up to me to react."
Romania's population falls by 12% as three million flock to richer
European countries including Britain
* Population has fallen to 19million as workers leave
By Rick Dewsbury
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Rick+Dewsbury>
Last updated at 12:01 AM on 4th February 2012
Romania's population has fallen by more than 12 per cent since 2002 as
hundreds of thousands leave the poverty-stricken nation for richer
countries such as Britain.
Figures from the latest Romanian census reveal that migration and a low
birth rate have pushed the population down to 19million, a fall of
almost 3million in ten years.
The country's National Statistics Board said nearly 1million Romanians
were working abroad.
Shocking: One-third of Big Issue sellers in the UK are now Romanian,
including Firuta Vasile, 27
Self-employed: Big issue seller Lina Petrea, 43, photographed in Angel,
London
Romanian Firuta Vasile, left, and Lina Petrea, right, are two of the
three million Romanians who have migrated from their homeland to Britain
where they can sell the Big Issue and claim generous benefits
However, other estimates suggest the number of expatriate workers could
be 3million.
There is no official figure for the number of Romanians in the UK, but
British bosses advertised 2,400 vacancies last month alone on a Romanian
website for nurses, engineers and other jobs.
Unemployment in Britain is at 8.4 per cent, but many firms seek staff
from impoverished nations such as Romania -- the second-poorest in the
EU after Bulgaria -- to work for low wages.
Although Romania joined the EU in 2007, its citizens still need
permission from the UK Border Agency to work here.
Romania is being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund and has
imposed austerity measures. Its falling population will further hit tax
revenues.
The figures raised concerns about the size of the country's work force
and tax income. It is also being hit by a low birth rate. The scene
outside the British Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, where many natives
seek visas which will give them entry to the UK
The scene outside the British Embassy in Bucharest, Romania, where many
natives seek visas which will give them entry to the UK
The data comes after a Romanian Big Issue seller in Britain was revealed
to be claiming generous state handouts.
Firuta Vasile, a mother of four who sold the magazine in Bristol, was
given the legal right to claim housing benefit on top of the other aid
she already receives.
An investigation revealed that large numbers of Romanians are working in
the UK as Big Issue vendors whilst also claiming benefits.
Almost one in three Big Issue sellers -- 700 out of a nationwide force
of 2,250 registered vendors according to the magazine -- were found to
have come from Romania.
Immigration officers swoop on an illegal Roma camp in Ireland. There are
as many as 2.5 million of the minority group in Romania, although the
exact figure is unknown
Immigration officers swoop on an illegal Roma camp in Ireland. There are
as many as 2.5 million of the minority group in Romania, although the
exact figure is unknown
The benefits loophole is just one example of the more prosperous life
that Romanian immigrants are able to lead in Britain.
The exit of workers has raised particular concerns in a country where
only about 5 million employees pay taxes and most of the rest are
pensioners, children, subsistence farmers or people working illegally.
Romania's over-sized and inefficient state sector accounts for nearly a
quarter of employees.
'The foreign migration balance is the main reason for the decline in
Romania's population, coupled with a negative natural growth,' said Ilie
Dumitrescu, spokeman for the National Statistics Board.
A Romany gypsies from the camp in Ireland carries her baby while
collecting some food
Some of the remaining 35 or so Romany gypsies still camped on the M50
roundabout in Ballymun, Dublin
A Romany gypsies from the camp in Ireland carries her baby while
collecting some food. Right, an older Romany women among tents and rubbish
Romania's government has pushed through tough austerity measures,
cutting salaries and raising sales tax to bring its budget cap under
control and maintain an International Monetary Fund bailout.
The fall in population will make it harder to increase revenue collection.
Hungarians make up 6.5 per cent of the population and 3.2 per cent, or
619,000, described themselves as Roma.
Rights group say many Roma do not declare their background, some of them
fearing discrimination, and the true number could be as high as 2.5
million. That would be the largest Roma community in Europe.
The statistics office estimates about a million people were not included
in the data because they did not complete the forms or are living abroad
and were not declared by relatives.
Dumitrescu said the agency would release more detailed data in late May
and there could still be some significant changes to the figures.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096110/Romanias-population-falls-12-million-flock-richer-European-countries.html#ixzz1lPXEoefDTelegraph
Man accused of involvment in war crimes wins human rights claim
A man accused of being complicit in war crimes in the former Yugoslavia has been allowed to stay in Britain on the grounds of human rights.
Dejan Tolic who has been given leave to remain in the UK despite attempts to have him deported to Croatia where it is claimed he is wanted for war crimes, an accusation which he strongly denies Photo: NORTH NEWS & PICTURES7:00AM GMT 05 Feb 2012
He looked like an innocent refugee, fleeing the ethnic tensions of former Yugoslavia for the safety and security of Britain.But when Dejan Tolic claimed asylum after coming to the UK in 1999, he made a surprising admission: he told the Home Office that he had been a member of the White Eagles, a Serbian paramilitary group linked to atrocities.By his own account he also served as a bodyguard for a leading Serbian nationalist, Vojislav Seselj, who is now on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague over the massacre of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.Mr Tolic’s asylum application was refused, but before he returned to his homeland he married a British woman, Kate, in 2004, and had a son by her. Now he is back in Britain and has won a legal battle to stay, on human rights grounds.Arguing for his removal, the Home Office submitted evidence from its War Crimes Unit which accused Mr Tolic of “alleged complicity in war crimes”. Against this, Mr Tolic cited his “right to a family life”. A judge ruled that he should be allowed to stay in Britain because he had fathered a child here.The case shows how human rights laws, drawn up in 1950 in a bid to avoid repeating the horrors of the Second World War, have been so mutated by British courts that they can now be used by the associate of an alleged war criminal.It also raises further questions about how Britain's border controls are being eroded by the European Convention on Human Rights.Speaking at his home, a flat in a converted mansion near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Tolic admitted working for Seselj.But the 36-year-old also claimed he was the victim of mistaken identity, suggesting the Home Office had confused him with a cousin who shared his name. “They said I was a bodyguard to Vojislav Seselj in 1993, but in reality I wasn’t his personal bodyguard, but rather just part of a security team,” Mr Tolic said. “In times of war you just find protection and you end up in groups that you feel safe with.“I have a cousin who has the same name as me and he did commit crimes during the war. I think they saw his name and thought it was me, but they never investigated fully enough. They said I was a war criminal but it was just mistake after mistake.”When Mr Tolic originally applied for asylum, he sought to justify his request by telling the Home Office that it would be dangerous for him to return to Serbia.As part of his claim, Mr Tolic said he had been a member of the White Eagles, also known as the Avengers, a paramilitary group linked with numerous atrocities such as the 1992 Visegrad massacre, in which 3,000 Bosnian Muslims were murdered, including hundreds of women and children.His asylum application was refused, and following his marriage and the birth of his baby he returned to Serbia with his family.Mr Tolic came back to Britain in 2006 after being granted two years’ leave to remain as a foreign spouse, but as part of that process answered a series of immigration questions.He answered “No” to the question: “Have you ever been concerned in the commission, preparation or organisation of genocidal crimes including crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the cause of armed conflict?”When he made a further application for leave to remain, his case was looked into more closely by the Home Office, focusing on the discrepancy between his denial of war crimes and his previous admission that he was a member of the White Eagles.“A report was produced and presented to the Secretary of State. It contains a recommendation that the appellant be regarded as a person who has been involved in war crimes and that he be refused further leave to remain on the grounds of 'character, conduct or association’,” court papers show.Mr Tolic was refused leave to remain in 2009 and in October 2010 the Home Office informed him that it intended to deport him from Britain. He launched a successful appeal, largely under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which seeks to protect the “right to private and family life”. But the Home Office then brought a further appeal.Mr Tolic’s lawyers told the court it would be “disproportionate” to remove him from Britain because of his relationship with his son, now aged six. The panel of judges chaired by Mark Ockelton, vice-president of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, found there had been an error in the Home Office’s original decision. The panel ordered that he should not be removed from Britain.Mr Tolic said he has been allowed to stay for a further three-year probationary period. “The probation period basically means I won’t know where I stand for three years,” he said. “It is as if they are putting the decision just further down the track.“I’ve been very disappointed by the way things have been dealt with. It has affected my life and has led to the breakdown of my marriage.”Mr Seselj, founder of the Serbian Radical Party, surrendered himself to the authorities in 2003. His trial, on charges of crimes against humanity, murder, torture and other atrocities, began in The Hague in 2007. He denies all charges.Lawyers in the case must submit their final briefs by today. Closing arguments are expected to begin next month. The prosecution claims Mr Seselj, 57, ordered the persecution and murder of non-Serb civilians in Sarajevo, Mostar and Vukovar between 1991 and 1993.A Home Office spokesman said Mr Tolic’s case showed why change was necessary.“We are disappointed with the court’s most recent decision and it demonstrates why we are changing the immigration rules to stop people using human rights laws to play the system,” he said.Telegraph
French interior minister claims some civilisations 'superior’
France’s conservative interior minister in charge of immigration policy has sparked controversy by claiming some civilisations are “superior” to others.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant Photo: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images4:21PM GMT 05 Feb 2012
In a Saturday speech to a group of right-leaning French students at the National Assembly, interior minister Claude Guéant caused a political uproar for saying that, “contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us, all civilisations are not of the same value”.“Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those who accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred,” he added in his speech, a copy of which was provided to the French press agency, AFP.Joining a general outcry on the French left, former presidential candidate and socialist, Ségolène Royal called the minister’s comments, “obscurantist and dangerous,” on France 3 television on Sunday.The Movement for young socialists (MJS) condemned the speech as “xenophobic” and a sign of “cultural racism,” in a statement, while others claimed the minister was baiting extremist right-wing, National Front party voters ahead of the spring presidential election.Guéant has been, “reduced to a mouthpiece for the FN (the National Front party),” wrote Socialist leader, Harlem Desir on Twitter.But with some studies showing popular support for the National Front as high as 20 per cent, as well as widespread concerns that many French Muslims of immigrant origin refuse to assimilate, Guéant’s controversial positions are viewed as a strategic electoral advantage for French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is still lagging in the polls.On Sunday Guéant insisted he had no regrets for suggesting certain cultures are, “more advanced” than others. “I don’t regret it, but I regret that some on the left continue to extrapolate little sentences from their context,” he said on French RTL radio.Telegraph
Judge casts doubt on criminal 's human rights reform
A foreign nurse who groped a pregnant patient can stay in Britain after the most senior immigration judge threw out Government attempts to stop criminals exploiting human rights in to jeopardy.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has proposed that for those jailed for at least a year the public interest in deporting them must outweigh any right to family life, which should only be applied in exceptional circumstances Photo: JULIAN SIMMONDS10:00PM GMT 10 Feb 2012
Mr Justice Blake warned moves to rebalance deportation decisions to make it harder for foreign criminals to hide behind the right to family life will not be possible.Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has proposed that for those jailed for at least a year the public interest in deporting them must outweigh any right to family life, which should only be applied in exceptional circumstances.But Mr Justice Blake, president of the immigration and asylum Upper Tribunal, the highest immigration court, ruled that the right to family life is an exception in itself and there is “no justification” for any other position.He made the general comments as he ruled former Indian nurse Milind Sanade can stay because he has a wife and two children here.He made the decision even though he accepted Mr Sanade’s residence in the UK “has not been particularly long” or that relocation of his family to India would be “practically impossible”.Mr Sanade was jailed for a year in 2010 for indecent assault on a patient at a hospital in Essex and later struck off as a nurse.He was working as a nurse as groped a pregnant woman’s breasts after she had come in concerned she was suffering from breast cancer.He asked her “does this feel good?”He then falsified the patient’s medical records to suggest she was emotionally unstable to undermine any possible complaint she made.It also later emerged he had been cautioned in 2008 for assaulting an elderly patient in his care.At the time of the sexual assault, Mr Sanade’s wife was pregnant herself with their second child.Mr Sanade first arrived in the UK in 2003 and married his wife, who was also Indian, in 2005 before having two children together.He was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2009 and Mrs Sanade and the two children are all now British citizens.Following his conviction he faced deportation but yesterday won on appeal after Mr Justice Blake, ruled he did not pose a risk and his deportation would not be a proportionate to his breach of family life.The judge dismissed two separate appeals against deportation from two drug dealers who had also claimed the right to family life.But he signalled a stark warning over the Government’s attempts to rebalance how the courts consider Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights as a protection for criminals.In a consultation last summer, the Home Office said where someone was jailed for more than a year “it is reasonable to presume that the public interest will warrant deportation and that only in exceptional circumstances will it be a breach of the right to respect for private and family life to remove the person from the UK”.After making a direct reference to the consultation, Mr Justice Blake said it “puts a gloss” on the fact Article 8 provides an exception suggesting that is only the case in exceptional circumstances.“This is not what the statute says. It nowhere suggests that the Article 8 claim must itself be exceptional,” he said.“Indeed it is difficult to see how it could do so.”He added: “The task in Article 8 assessments is whether interference with established family or private life that is to be respected is necessary and proportionate, that is, strikes a right balance.”Dominic Raab, the Tory MP, said: “It adds insult to injury that the President of the Upper Immigration Tribunal is engaged in a political attack on the government for trying to reform the current legal shambles.“It shows that we need an Act of Parliament to clear up the mess and make public protection the top priority.”Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migration Watch UK, said: “This throws a spanner in the works of Home Office attempts to narrow down the use of the right to family life as an excuse for avoiding deportation by foreign criminals.”A UK Border Agency spokeswoman said: "We are disappointed by the court's decision in this case and we will now look at whether we can appeal this verdict."For too long Article 8 has been used to place the family rights of foreign criminals and immigration offenders above the rights of the British public."This is why we will change the immigration rules to reinforce the public interest in seeing foreign criminals and those who have breached our immigration laws removed from this country.”Telegraph
Abu Qatada: the evil let loose on our streets
His family has cost the taxpayer more than £500,000 in benefits, while his sermons are required reading for terrorists. But next week Abu Qatada could be freed from prison.
Hate figure: attempts to deport Abu Qatada to his native Jordan have been blocked Photo: Jonathan Evans / Rex Features8:51PM GMT 10 Feb 2012
The saga of Abu Qatada is like a mirror to the society we have become. The Jordanian Palestinian was born Omar Othman in Bethlehem in 1960. He entered Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport in 1993 and was granted asylum the following year. Since 2002, Qatada has spent most of his time in detention, because successive home secretaries, including Theresa May, have argued that he is “a very dangerous man”, though – uniquely – the BBC say he is a “radical”, not an “extremist’. In reality, Qatada is listed on the consolidated United Nations list of international terrorists under “Al-Qaeda Associates”.Although British judges decided he could be deported to Jordan, they were overruled by their counterparts in Strasbourg. However, it is the British justice system that is responsible for Qatada’s prospective release from detention, as early as Monday, and the likely lapse of revised home supervision arrangements. During his odyssey through the courts, Qatada has been assiduously represented by the likes of Gareth Peirce, with his rights championed by NGOs such as Justice. It is tempting to wonder how much lawyers’ fees have cost the British taxpayer.Home to Mr Qatada in recent years has been the detainee wing at Long Lartin maximum security prison in Worcestershire. A quarter of the inmates are Muslims, but Qatada is not allowed near them. He is one of nine “detainees” who refused to join the larger pool of vulnerable prisoners lest they be stigmatised as sex offenders.An HM Prisons Inspectorate report last August offers a stark picture of the jail and the concerns of contemporary British bureaucrats as they strive for “best practice”. Inspectors worry that the dowdy kitchens require a lick of paint, and that the view through external fences could be improved. However, they say, there has been some progress in combating racism and in catering for gay and transgender inmates. Inevitably, though, some detainees are depressed, but thankfully there is “self-guided mental-health software” available on computers, entitled Beating the Blues.Meanwhile, let’s not lose sight of Mrs Qatada, who uses the name Ibtisan Saleh, and the five Qatada children, four of whom are entitled to welfare provision. Before his detention, Qatada received a range of taxpayer benefits totalling about £50,000 a year. Apart from incapacity benefit for his bad back, there was a further £800 a week in child benefits, housing and council tax credits, and income support. That’s £500,000 over a decade – plus the lawyers’ fees that, of course, have been funded by the state.The reasons why Qatada is called a “very dangerous man” are not hard to establish, even without the secret intelligence available to the Special Tribunals that licensed his detention. He was al-Qaeda’s chief source of spiritual incitement and legitimisation in Europe. In essence, he tailored Islam for terrorist purposes.Indeed, a 2009 online list of required reading for terrorists – called A Mujahid’s Bookbag – includes 81 lengthy works and 98 articles by Abu Qatada. Nineteen of his audio-cassette sermons were found by German police in the Hamburg apartment of Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker. In the year before the US attacks, Qatada was visited 20 times in London by Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who was jailed in Spain for 27 years for his part in the 9/11 conspiracy.The Jordanians convicted Qatada of involvement in two conspiracies. The first was an Algerian-Palestinian plot to blow up the packed SAS Radisson Hotel in Amman in 1998; the second was the so-called “Millennium Plot”, involving three strikes on the same hotel in Amman, Los Angeles airport, and the USS The Sullivans, although the overladen suicide boat sank off Yemen as it was about to attack and Algerian terrorists were pre‑empted in Los Angeles.The recurring references to Algerians are no coincidence: Abu Qatada’s main contribution to the global jihadist movement came in the Nineties, at the height of the Islamist carnage in that country. Qatada is a salafist-takfiri theologian. That means he is an ultra-fundamentalist, so extreme that he regards most run-of-the-mill Muslim regimes, and those who serve them, as heretics worse than mere infidels.He issued fatwas calling for the “justified” killing not only of Algerian officials, policemen and soldiers, but their wives and families, too. He put his spiritual imprimatur on the Armed Islamic Group (better known as the GIA) which, with its even more extreme successors, killed between 150,000 and 200,000 people in Algeria in the late Nineties. Many victims had their throats cut.We know more about this period of Abu Qatada’s life than any other, because he fell out with the Syrian ideologue and bona fide jihadist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri whom he had met in Afghanistan. After the two collaborated in London, al-Suri grew to hate Qatada so much that he wrote a 150-page book on him, noting that Qatada had joined the Afghan Mujahideen only after the fighting was over.All this global incitement took place in London, under the noses of the British security services. And, while here, Qatada has never exactly concealed his true feelings for his new home: in one sermon in the Finsbury Park mosque in 1999, he said that Americans should be attacked, and that they and the British people were no different from Jews, whom he had already said should all be killed. Only after 9/11 and the 2005 bombs in London was Qatada deemed “very dangerous”.This protracted farce is set to continue as judges preside over the dedicated representations of Qatada’s rights by Ms Peirce, formerly the lawyer of choice for Irish Republicans. The Prime Minister may have spoken to King Abdullah of Jordan and agreed to work on finding a “solution” to the case, but this particular vine is unlikely to bear much fruit.So, realising they are on the wrong side of public opinion, the Government will continue to huff and puff about Qatada being turned loose in Wembley, while cowering before the Lib Dems and such colleagues as Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve, both senior lawyers. Local bureaucrats will continue to dispense our money to Mrs Qatada and their children, despite that £170,000 cash sum which Qatada will expect to have returned on his release.Any government serious about our security would put Qatada on a one-way flight to Jordan, disdaining the opinion of judges in Strasbourg. That is what our no less civilised, but undoubtedly less decadent, allies in France and Italy would do. Indeed, the tougher-minded Italians have simply deported several jihadists to Tunisia, blithely discounting trivial fines and the disapprobation of Strasbourg. But then these countries are part of cultures that are not so piously craven in the face of the overpaid zealots of the human rights racket.When has the BBC investigated the NGOs and law firms that represent the likes of Qatada? Its puritanical attitude to abstract human rights has resulted in a failure to ask elementary questions, thanks to those who exhibit a deadly combination of intellectual infirmity and moralising self-righteousness.How did conventions and laws designed after 1945 to prevent us being murdered in concentration camps and gulags degenerate into prisoners’ rights to have pornography in their cells or to vote in elections? Since when did the Qatadas of this world get the right to license suicide bombings in friendly countries?A government that practised leadership would ensure that those questions were at least posed, rather than fear what is merely bien pensant opinion – including those so softly decadent that they dub Qatada a “radical”, a designation more suited to Joseph Chamberlain.Or is the Government just terrified of the likes of Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, or what will doubtless soon be Lady Shami Chakrabarti, that it thinks it can defy the massed outrage of the British people?On top of everything else,
Top judge ordered to scrap human rights ruling
Britain’s most senior immigration judge has been ordered to scrap a ruling which allowed a foreign killer to stay in Britain on human rights grounds.
The Prime Minister has expressed alarm at the way human rights are preventing dangerous offenders and terrorists such as Abu Qatada, pictured, from being deported Photo: JONATHAN EVANS
Thursday, 16 February 2012
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