About Face?

Does the head of MI5 read this blog?

He's certainly changed his tune. For years the Security Service have been telling us that the terror threat is increasing, with the Guardian reporting in July 2008 that even the Irish are apparently still up to no good. Only a couple of months ago, in November 2008 a leaked report once again stated that the threat was growing. You might be forgiven for thinking that this meant we were losing the War on Terror, since the aim of that war is presumably to lessen or even eradicate the threat from terrorism, rather than increase it. As I discussed here some weeks back, these claims of a constantly increasing threat make no sense while they've been peddling the same numbers around for over a year.

It seems MI5 have finally taken heed of such criticisms and performed a classic New Labour U-turn on the subject, since they are now telling us that prosecutions have 'cut' the terrorist threat. A few days ago, the BBC reported that:

Jonathan Evans said the 86 prosecutions in the last two years had had a "chilling effect on the enthusiasm of terror networks". - BBC

The Times quoted Evans as saying:

"There have been 86 successful convictions since January 2007 of whom approaching half pleaded guilty, which has had a chilling effect on the enthusiasm of the networks. They’re keeping their heads down." - The Times

Now, he was actually talking about convictions rather than prosecutions but it is somewhat mystifying as to which particular convictions he's referring to as having had this effect. The July 7th Truth campaign's forum has a dedicated 'Terror Raids and Trials' section which archives and discusses the coverage of police and judiciary activity in the British War on Terror which proved very useful in trying to establish what the hell Evans is talking about. Much thanks to them for making it easier to find this information.

The only way he can get the number to 86, as far as I can see, is to include not only people who were never convicted of terrorist charges but also people convicted of essentially trivial offences under the increasingly ludicrous and meaningless terrorism legislation. Thus, he is presumably including the conviction of Samina Malik, a former Heathrow shop girl who was found guilty of possessing a terrorist manual that it turns out is utterly useless, and who wrote poetry praising Bin Laden. As the Guardian noted:

"The prosecutor Jonathan Sharp said of Malik's poetry: "These communications strongly indicate Samina Malik was deeply involved with terrorist related groups." Eh? Is al-Qaida out to poison the poetic bedrock of western civilisation with crass imagery and poor scansion?" - Guardian

Unsurprisingly, this conviction was overturned. Likewise, Evans must be including the conviction of Sohail Qureshi, who was 'caught' trying to board a plane to Pakistan carrying a moderate sum of money, some night vision goggles and some military manuals downloaded to CDs. Qureshi entered a guilty plea, claiming he was intending to be part of an operation in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Waziristan. However, the judge clearly saw him as something of a Walter Mitty character and not a serious threat as he sentenced him to only four and a half years (still a long time to serve for a thoughtcrime) despite the Attorney General's efforts to have the sentence extended.

Khalid Khaliq is another who pleaded guilty, this time to possession of a CD containing the Al Qaeda training manual. The manual was largely written by triple agent Ali Mohamed, during the period he was living in the US and working with the US Army's Special Forces and then the FBI. As such, it had appeared in a modified form on the US Justice Department's website after a trial in 2001, was downloaded not by Khaliq but most likely by Martin Gilbertson. Perhaps most importantly of all, Khaliq never actually opened the files on his computer, and you could argue they weren't actually in his possession, simply being stored at his house. Regardless, the convictions of five young Muslim men from Bradford for essentially identical 'crimes' were overturned in February 2008, with the judge stating that:

"Literature may be stored in a book or on a bookshelf, or on a computer drive, without any intention on the part of the possessor to make any future use of it all." - onlinejournal

As noted by The Antagonist on the July 7th website:

"In accordance with the ruling of the Appeal Court and the proclaimation of the Lord Chief Justice, the 'crime' for which Khalid Khaliq was convicted is not a crime at all and a conviction should never have been obtained. Khalid Khaliq -- the father of and sole carer for three children, two girls aged 11 and eight and a five-year-old son, who has learning difficulties -- was convicted for a 'crime' that the Lord Chief Justice ruled is not a crime." - The Antagonist

Further, the much publicised liquid bomb plot trial ended in convictions, but not under terrorism charges. In what was described as the strongest terrorism case in UK trial history, the jury could not come to verdicts on the main charge of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid explosives. Three of the men were convicted of conspiracy to murder, though who they were conspiring to murder was never made clear. In a media campaign I can only describe as Orwellian, it was widely reported that they had in fact been convicted of a massive terrorist plot. The Express, The Scotsman, The Sun, and others reported that the three were planning on killing hundreds if not thousands of people. At least the NY Times got it right. The plot wasn't even remotely plausible, as reported by Nafeez Ahmed:

Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."

British and American government officials have described the operation which resulting in the arrest of 24 mostly British Muslim suspects, as a resounding success. Thirteen of the suspects have been charged, and two released without charges...

...But Lt. Col. Wylde, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in 1974, described this scenario as a "fiction." Creating liquid explosives is a "highly dangerous and sophisticated task," he states, one that requires not only significant chemical expertise but also appropriate equipment.

"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst. - Rawstory

This assessment from Wylde was confirmed during the trial, when it emerged that it took the explosives experts working for the prosecution at the Ministry of Defence's Fort Halstead base in Kent 30 or more attempts to produce an explosion worth showing to the jury. Despite their expertise and laboratory conditions they still struggled due to the sheer volatility of acetone peroxide based explosives.

Woolwich Crown Court heard the danger of the homemade device going off was so great that scientists at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead in Kent had to insert the detonator with a mechanical arm once they had left the chamber.
- The Telegraph

You can see an excerpt from the video shown to the jury here. The prosecution in the trial conceded that the accused had never actually made a viable device of any kind, which further confirms that this was never a viable threat to the safety of UK or US citizens. Despite this, the CPS is pressing ahead with a retrial of 7 out of the 8 men, obviously somewhat flustered by the fact that supposedly its strongest case fell flat on its arse.

Which of the 8 are they no longer pursuing? Mohammed Gulzar, the only man to have been completely exonerated at the original trial. Described by The Times as the 'shadowy ringleader' of the plot, the prosecution very much saw him as central to the unfolding of the conspiracy:

“We submit that the pressing reason for his arrival, and his ulterior purpose in remaining and liaising with Ali and Sarwar, was his involvement as a senior figure in this plot to blow up transatlantic aircraft,” Mr Wright said...

...The court heard that he had appeared to have returned from South Africa in a hurry, having booked his flight only a day before his journey began, on July 14. “Something caused him to take immediate action and travel to the United Kingdom,” Mr Wright said.

The decision to take the flight directly had coincided with the alleged purchase by the plotters of a bomb factory for £138,000 in cash, the buying and stockpiling of equipment and bomb-making ingredients, and recruitment of personnel, the prosecution claimed...

...“It is the Crown's case that not only was he one of the intended suicide bombers but that he was also an important conduit between Ali and Sarwar,” he said.

“In other words, between the Walthamstow and High Wycombe ends of this particular conspiracy. That he was liaising between them and also directly involved in the purchase of equipment that was used in the manufacture of improvised explosive devices. - The Times

According to Stratfor, who claim to be 'the world’s leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence', Gulzar's profile and deliberate concealing of his identity suggest he was:

An operational commander who had been sent from abroad to assist the grassroots plotters with their attack plans. - Stratfor

If this were true then there should have been abundant evidence of his role as liason between two of the three convicted men, Ali and Sanwar, and of his role in recruiting the others and acquiring the bomb equipment. Yet he was cleared of all charges. The BBC reported:

Mr Gulzar denied any role in the plot or knowing what Sarwar and Ali were planning.

The defence ridiculed the picture painted of their client, saying prosecutors were presenting the defendant as a cross between Carlos the Jackal and spoof spy Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery. - BBC

So who is he, unconnected innocent Islamic missionary, or duplicitous ringleader of the whole plot? I'd suggest a third possibility - agent provocateur. He came into the country on a false passport, and it seems the plot only really got going around the time of his arrival. Yet he successfully denied any involvement, and clearly the evidence wasn't sufficient even to cause the jury to be unsure, when it should be even more abundant than the evidence against the others. This suggests to me that he's been protected, presumably by the same people who tasked him to turn these young men into apparent terrorist plotters. There are similar suspicions concerning the two informants in the case of the Toronto 18. This story is covered excellently by the documentary Unfair Dealing.




Nonetheless, none of these men were convicted of plotting a terrorist attack, and so their convictions can hardly be said to have reduced the threat from terrorism. Likewise the case of Mohamed Atif Siddique who was convicted of collecting terror related information, which he claimed was because of his interest in understanding the motivations of terrorists. Curiously, they haven't prosecuted Amazon for continuing to sell copies of the Al Qaeda training manual. Nor does there seem to have been any objection to the Tamil Tigers holding an event in praise of their suicide bombers.

As to the near half of the 86 who entered guilty pleas to the charges they faced, this has to be put in the context of the increase in the period of pre-charge detention. That is, they can lock you up for four weeks, during which time all you really do is either sit in a cell or get bullied by the police. As former Prime Minister and player John Major noted:

Pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours; South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days; and Turkey 7½ days. - John Major, The Times

Also, many of the convictions came under the extremely broad definitions in 2006 Terrorism Acts. As noted by Gareth Peirce:

In the face of a succession of questionable convictions, we now see a new and disturbing phenomenon whereby more than one innocent defendant, unable to comprehend the accusation levelled, yet terrified at the prospect of inevitable conviction, insists on pleading guilty in an attempt to avoid sentences that become ever more severe. - The Guardian

The police's record on investigating terrorist attacks is appalling. The most high profile cases include that of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, who were forced into false confessions by the police. The Guildford Four did eventually receive an apology from then Prime Minister Tony Blair, much as Anne Maguire eventually got a papal honour, but it hardly makes up for years of prison and being branded a murderer and a terrorist. More recently, Colm Murphy faces a retrial after successfully appealing against his conviction for involvement in the Omagh bombing, an attack that it appears MI5 could have stopped. In his case he was denied the presumption of innocence and the police fabricated evidence against him, according to the ruling of the three judges. In another trial regarding the Omagh bombing Sean Hoey was acquitted, largely on the basis of shoddy forensic standards and the use of an outdated genetic sampling technique.

Rather oddly, the Independent ran an article vaguely covering the Jonathan Evans press conference and in their banner asked 'can we trust him', yet they never get round to answering that question. I'll answer it for them - no, we cannot trust him. His statement is not only out of keeping with the established (albeit self-contradictory) philosophy of the War on Terror, it is deceptive. Firstly, it engages a sort of doublethink, in that while he's telling us the convictions have reduced the terrorist threat, the convictions implicitly reinforce the idea of that threat. Secondly, those convictions are nothing like 86 people who were planning to blow up airliners or trains or marketplaces, though his representation of them as a significant proportion of the threat speaks volumes for the true nature of that threat. Thirdly, whatever brief change in the winds was acknowledged by Evans, we're now back to the original story, with outgoing President Bush telling brother Obama that terrorism remains the most urgent threat to the US.