Terrorist Detention Tactic: House Arrest

Does the government (of the U.K. this time) really need to be told that people who plot with others to kill innocents cannot be trusted? From The Guardian Unlimited

A suspected terrorist has escaped the authorities after being placed on a control order, in the latest embarrassment to hit the Home Office.

It was understood the man, who has not been named, escaped from a mental health unit and has been on the run for two weeks.

The British citizen was believed to have climbed through a window to evade staff at the London unit.

Control orders act as a loose form of house arrest, usually placing suspects under a curfew and requiring them to report regularly to police. The man now on the run will have been suspected of playing a role in international terrorism, possibly linked to al-Qaida groups.

So this person is a suspected terrorist and he was placed only under house arrest? Does that make anyone out there feel safe?

It was thought he was handed his control order on April 5.

His admission to the mental health unit is understood to have been a more recent development and would not normally have been part of the control order conditions.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "Any breach of security will be investigated on a case-by-case basis. We do not discuss individual cases."

Control orders were brought in at the beginning of last year as a replacement for indefinite detention without trial or charge.

Sure is working well, isn't it?

The Home Office does not reveal the identities of people on control orders. The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: "Since control orders were the government's flagship anti-terrorism measure, this is a huge embarrassment for them.

"As we have always made clear, the danger of control orders is that they short-circuit due process and keep suspects in a state of limbo. Our aim must be to get suspects into court and, where they are guilty, convicted.

"This should act as a spur for the government to develop more robust ways to get suspects into court in the first place, such as using intercept evidence."

I should hope they are embarrassed.