Britain to deport 10 foreigners

LONDON -- Britain detained a Palestinian cleric considered Osama bin Laden's spiritual ambassador in Europe and nine other foreigners Thursday, saying they were a threat to national security and would be deported.

An attorney for the cleric, Sheik Omar Mahmood Abu Omar, confirmed he was taken into custody. The Home Office didn't identify the detainees, but a British official said Abu Qatada was among those detained.

The move came a day after Britain signed an extradition agreement with Jordan, where Abu Qatada has been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for alleged involvement in a series of bombings and terror plots.

He has been described by British officials as bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe" and allegedly was an inspiration for Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta.

The detentions were another indication of the dramatic impact that last month's terror bombings have had in a country where radical Muslims had found something of a haven. Prime Minister Tony Blair announced plans last week to get tough with religious extremists.

Abu Qatada spent three years in a high security British prison without being charged under anti-terror powers introduced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but he was released in March after Britain's highest court ruled the legislation breached human rights.

He was swiftly re-arrested under new anti-terror measures that allow suspects to be electronically tagged, kept under curfew, denied the use of telephones or the Internet and barred from meeting outsiders, even if no charges are filed.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke gave the 10 foreigners detained Thursday a "notice of intention to deport," the Home Office said.

"The circumstances of our national security have changed, it is vital that we act against those who threaten it," Clarke said in a statement. The detainees have five business days to appeal their deportations.

The Home Office said the foreigners would be deported once Britain was assured they would not face torture of mistreatment in the countries to which they were being sent.

As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to a country where they may face torture or death. But the government has been trying to win pledges from several countries, including Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia and Egypt, that deportees would not be subjected to inhumane treatment.

"We believe now that we can get the assurances that these people will not be tortured or mistreated and on that basis we will be able to proceed with the deportations," Home Office minister Hazel Blears told the BBC.

Human rights activists and the U.N. special envoy on torture, Manfred Nowak, said, however, that such assurances have no weight in international law and would not sufficiently protect the deportees.

Meanwhile, radical cleric Omar Bakri, who is being investigated in Britain for remarks on the July bombings, was arrested in Lebanon by security officials.

Britain's Foreign Office said no British warrant had been issued for Bakri. Britain's Home Office declined to say whether it had lodged an extradition request. However, such a move was considered unlikely as the government had been considering how to deport or bar Bakri from Britain.

Bakri is regarded as an Islamic extremist in Britain, where he has lived for 20 years. He left on Saturday and flew to Lebanon to see his mother.

He recently said he would not inform the police if he knew that Muslims were planning attacks such as the July 7 suicide bombings in London that killed 56 people, including four attackers. He claimed that Islam prohibited him from reporting Muslims to the British police.

Eight people also appeared in British courts Thursday on charges of withholding information from police seeking the four suspects in failed July 21 bomb attacks in London. All were ordered held pending further court appearances.

They included the wife and sister-in-law of Hamdi Issac, who is suspected of trying to blow up a subway train and is being held in Rome on international terrorism charges.

The three other suspects in the July 21 attacks -- Ibrahim Muktar Said, Yasin Omar and Ramzi Mohammed -- appeared in court earlier this week on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possessing or making explosives and conspiracy to use explosives.

British police have not charged anyone in the July 7 bombings.

Also Thursday, a terror suspect wanted by U.S. authorities appeared for a preliminary extradition hearing in London.

Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, is accused by the United States of conspiring to set up a camp in Bly, Ore., in 1999-2000 to provide training in weapons, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts for militants aiming to fight in Afghanistan.

Aswat was ordered held until another hearing Sept. 8. Aswat, a Briton deported from Zambia last weekend and arrested by British police under the U.S. warrant, has said he will contest extradition.