British Government puts terrorist case

The Court of Appeal was today to hear the British Government's case for imposing orders curbing the freedom of terrorist suspects who have not been charged with a crime.

The "control orders" system was devised after courts ruled that the Government could not detain terrorist suspects indefinitely without charging them and bringing them to trial. In April, Justice Jeremy Sullivan ruled that the Government violated the rights of a suspected terrorist by placing him under restrictions that essentially confined the man to his home. Sullivan ruled that the anti-terror laws are incompatible with human rights laws because they denied the man, a British citizen identified as MB, a right to a fair hearing.

Last week, Sullivan quashed control orders restricting six other terrorist suspects.