By IRNA,
London : A total of 201 people in the UK were arrested on suspicion of terrorism last year, according to official figures published Thursday.
The number of terrorism arrests is up from 178 made in the previous year and brings the total to 1,759 since the 9/11 attacks in the US in 2001.
Despite a fall of 12 per cent, the figures for the year to September 11 2009 show that there were still 200,444 people stopped and searched without any grounds of suspicions under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
In January, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the emergency stop and search powers given to police violated article eight of the European convention on human rights, regarding the right to privacy.
The case, which involved two people stopped outside a protest demonstration near a London arms fair in 2003, is seen as a blow to the government’s policy on combating the threat of terrorism.
A breakdown of the latest figures from the Home Office show that only 17 of the 201 arrests led to charges under terror laws, although another 49 were charged with other offences, including seven that were said to be terrorism-related.
Altogether, 383 suspects have been charged with terrorism-related offences in the past eight years, the most common charges have been for possession of an article for terrorism purposes (30%) and fundraising (14%).
Some 74% of those prosecuted have led to convictions. The figures for last year show that there were 29 terror trials, with 86% resulting in a conviction.