belmarsh

[After 9-11], Blair bulldozed through Parliament a new brand of internment. This allowed for the indefinite detention without trial of foreign nationals, the ‘evidence’ to be heard in secret with the detainee’s lawyer not permitted to see the evidence against him and an auxiliary lawyer appointed by the attorney general who, having seen it, was not allowed to see the detainee. The most useful device of the executive is its ability to claim that secrecy is necessary for national security. Each of the dozen men snatched from his home on 17 December 2001, and delivered to HMP Belmarsh, expressed astonishment: first at finding himself the object of the much trumpeted legislation and, second, at discovering who his fellow detainees were. Each asked why, if he was suspected of activity linked to terrorism, he had never been questioned by police or the Security Services before it was decided that he was a ‘risk to national security’.

...Each man was told that, for a reason that could not be disclosed, he was in some unspecified way thought to be linked to unspecified persons or organisations, in turn linked to al-Qaida.

On his arrival at Belmarsh in 2001, G was put together with the other detainees in what is known as "the unit", a prison-within-a-prison built for IRA prisoners during the Troubles. "We were kept a minimum of 22 hours in the cell and never saw the sky," says G, who did not see his wife for six months. "When she was finally allowed to visit, there was a screen and we had to communicate by phone." The then home secretary, David Blunkett, declared that he and other detainees could not be deported to Algeria because they would be tortured. "But it was apparently OK to keep us in prison indefinitely here. In Britain, animals have rights; I have fewer rights than an animal."

It was in December 2001, after the passing of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, that G became one of 12 foreign nationals detained in Belmarsh prison. Police and immigration officials arrived at 4am, and took him away on his crutches. "There were 15 police officers crammed into this one-bedroomed flat," G recalls. "They were swearing and very aggressive. My young daughter started crying." There was no stopping at a police station to be interviewed - it was straight to Belmarsh. To this day, neither G nor any of the other detainees have been told what they are supposed to have done, and G has still not been questioned by police or security services. The "Belmarsh 12" have never appeared in a normal court to answer charges...