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When a London jury last week refused to convict anyone of plotting to destroy aircraft, they called down a rain of official fury on their heads. But on that charge, at least, they were probably right.
Whatever those famously reliable “security sources” may claim, the airborne part of the Crown's case was not “open and shut”. Though the plot was said to be “in the final stages”, no flights had been booked, no tickets bought. No constructed bombs were found. On the hundreds of hours of surveillance tape, the suspects barely mentioned aircraft.
One of the suspects, Ahmed Ali, did write in a diary how to get bombs through airport-style security checks. He also checked flight times online and downloaded some. Ali was convicted of plotting murder but the jury decided, probably rightly, that the aircraft part of the conspiracy was not established beyond reasonable doubt.
Yet for those of us who believe the terrorist threat is serious, other verdicts were worrying. Remarkably, the jury also refused to convict four other defendants of plotting murder, even though they'd actually recorded martyrdom videos, for posthumous release, describing exactly that.
Umar Islam's video, played to the court, said: “We are doing this to gain the pleasure of our Lord...[he] loves us to die and kill.” Ibrahim Savant's video started: “I have sacrificed my life...” Arafat Waheed Khan made two videos, and allegedly bought bomb-making equipment, too. If juries are willing to discount evidence like that, the security establishment has a really serious credibility problem. It is in all our interests to find solutions.
One answer is obvious: make less of a hoopla about the initial arrests. Even if the airliner plot really was, in the words of the Met deputy commissioner, “mass murder on an unimaginable scale”, don't say so. As a whole range of cases from the ricin (or no-ricin) plot onwards shows, what you can prove in court won't always meet the expectations you've raised.
Secondly, keep the intelligence services as far out of the picture as possible. These are agencies with a long record, predating Iraq, of serious factual errors, agencies for whom, it's no insult to say, deceit and trickiness are necessary professional tools.
Once again, yesterday, with the Omagh bombing as with the 7/7 attacks, the spooks have been caught not being frank about their failures. The police, who have always had to operate in the open, have far more credibility than MI5 or 6.
Verdicts like last week's may strengthen the glinty-eyed Whitehall authoritarians who dream of control orders, detention without charge and other exciting ways round democratic legal norms. But the security establishment's pursuit of such “solutions” is one of the very reasons it has sacrificed trust.
Senior police and politicians spend too much time campaigning for more and harsher powers. So the arrests of people such as the airline plotters, and the claims made about them, risk looking like part of the campaign — even if they aren't.
In a deeply misguided article last week, Peter Clarke, the Met's former counter-terror chief, claimed the guilty-to-murder verdicts as a victory for the “surveillance society”.
No. They were a victory for surveillance, which is entirely justified in a case like this. They were nothing to do with the “surveillance society” with its rightly controversial Big Brother spying on the innocent or trivial.
In this and other ways, Mr Clarke and his ilk have blurred the distinction between guilt and innocence. They seek power to detain without disclosing evidence. They defend shooting innocents on suspicion. Given that, it is perhaps less surprising that last week's jury was reluctant to make the distinction between innocence and guilt.
Reader views (2)
yes i agree wif gilligan its gota bee ken livingstones fault
- Mat, london, 15/09/2008 16:45
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Cracking article Mr Gilligan. I really enjoy your work.
Hopefully in the open prison that the UK is fast becoming we'll be allowed to visit each others detention areas.
- Ethan, UK, 15/09/2008 11:22
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