UK court: 2 men regarded security threat can’t be deported because of risk of torture at home

UK can’t deport men to Pakistan over torture risk

LONDON — The alleged ringleader of an al-Qaida bomb plot and another man regarded as a serious danger to national security can’t be deported to their native Pakistan because they risk being tortured in their homeland, a British court ruled Tuesday.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission said Abid Naseer, 24, and Ahmed Faraz Khan, 26, can’t be forcibly removed to Pakistan, because of the likelihood they would be mistreated. Judge John Mitting and two colleagues made the ruling despite labeling Naseer an al-Qaida operative and suggesting Khan was “willing to participate” in a terror attack.

“There is a long and well-documented history of disappearances, illegal detention and of the torture and ill-treatment of those detained, usually to produce information, a confession or compliance,” the judges said in a ruling issued Tuesday.

Both men were among a group of 12 people arrested last April in a series of anti-terror raids across northern England. All were released without charge, but authorities insisted they had thwarted a major al-Qaida bomb plot against Britain.

Britain’s government chose not to appeal the decision, as it has before in similar cases. The country’s former administration has been accused by a number of ex-detainees of colluding in the torture of suspects held overseas — a charge it denied.

Home Secretary Theresa May said Britain would make arrangements to protect the public from the two men.

“As the court agreed, they are a security risk to the U.K.,” May said in a statement. “We are now taking all possible measures to ensure they do not engage in terrorist activity.”

No charges were ever brought in connection with the alleged 2009 plot, but Mitting said in his judgment that British authorities believed the group had planned to carry out a “mass casualty” attack in northwestern England between April 15-20 of that year.

Mitting said the case rested on a series of e-mails exchanged between Naseer and an e-mail account used in Pakistan by an al-Qaida linked terrorist. Police insisted the messages were a veiled discussion about explosives, but Naseer denies that.

Naseer, from Peshawar, and Khan, from Bannu, in northwestern Pakistan, were not present at the hearing.

A third man detained in the raids, Shoaib Khan, 31, won an appeal of his exclusion from Britain. He has already returned to Pakistan, but the judges accepted he was likely unaware of details of the alleged plot.

Abdul Wahab Khan, 27, and Tariq Ur Rehman, 38, who both voluntarily left Britain to return to Pakistan, had their appeals against exclusion from the U.K. rejected.

Police and security officials have never provided details of the alleged target of the purported plot, but said it was likely focussed on a major center in northern England.