By IRNA,
London : Three Court of Appeal judges Wednesday cleared the way for two terrorist suspects to claim damages from the British government for having control orders wrongly imposed on them for three and a half years.
Their ruling upheld a previous High Court judgment that the control orders against a British Libyan, only known as AF, and an Iraqi Kurd, referred to as AE, should not merely be revoked but quashed because they should never have been made in the first place.
The decision to quash their control orders followed a landmark ruling last year that none of them had been given sufficient disclosure of the evidence against them to support claims that they were engaged in terrorism-related activities.
The prospect is that a third suspect, known as only AN, will not be prosecuted for breaching the terms of his control order, which has also been quashed.
The ruling clears the way for damages claims to be brought on behalf of AE and AF for loss of liberty and alleged human rights violations dating back three and a half years to 2006, when the control orders were originally imposed to restrict their movement.
The decision was welcomed by Liberty civil rights group, which said the latest ruling was “yet another demonstration of the disaster of control orders.”
“It only adds insult to injury that such an unsafe, unjust policy has cost the public purse a small fortune in litigation costs,” said Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.
Last month, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that a control order against an Ethiopian terrorist suspect breached his human rights by forcing him to live 150 miles (240 ms) away from his family.
Control orders were introduced in 2005 to restrict the movements of terrorist suspects, where there is considered to be inadequate evidence to gain a prosecution.
Britain’s new coalition government has yet to decide on the existing control order regime, with both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats previously voting against their introduction when they were in opposition.
Earlier this year, the joint committee on human rights followed the all-party home affairs committee in urging the government to abandon their use, saying that they cost too much and caused “untold damage to the UK’s international reputation.”