How BBC’s interview with terror suspect cost the taxpayers £100,000

April 6th, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Jack Doyle and Paul Revoir

PUBLISHED:

16:18 EST, 5 April 2012

|

UPDATED:

16:18 EST, 5 April 2012

Handcuffed: Ahmad, being led from a police van

A BBC interview with a terrorist suspect will cost taxpayers more than £100,000.

The corporation brought a legal challenge to get access to Babar Ahmad, who is held in a maximum-security prison accused of conspiracy to kill, raising money for terror groups and running a terrorist website.

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke opposed the filmed interview, but judges ruled that blocking it would breach the inmate’s human rights.

Yesterday the BBC broadcast lengthy extracts from the interview across its television and radio channels and it was the top story on its news website.

It was also featured at length on the BBC’s main current affairs programme Newsnight.

Ahmad, 37, has been held in Long Lartin high-security prison for nearly eight years on an extradition warrant. He is wanted in the U.S. on terror charges and faces life imprisonment if found guilty.

Authorities there claim he ran a terrorist support cell in London and a website that glorified terror attacks and linked Islamists in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere.

As well as raising funds for the Taliban, he is accused of possessing secret files showing the movements of a U.S. Navy battle group.

The U.S. charges include ‘conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure persons or damage property in a foreign country’.

BBC journalist Dominic Casciani asked to film an interview with him, but access was refused by ministers.

Defending the decision in the High Court, Ministry of Justice lawyers said victims of terrorism living in the UK would be ‘understandably and justifiably distressed’ if terror suspects were given a platform.

Allowing them to ‘mount media campaigns from prison would risk undermining confidence in the criminal justice system’.

Support: Protesters lent their support to Ahmad outside his trial in 2004 despite his arrest under anti-terror laws

But the BBC argued that refusing an interview breached Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, the right to freedom of expression. Rejecting the suggestion of a written interview, it said filming Ahmad would give a ‘unique insight into the effects of prolonged detention without trial’.

It would also give an opportunity to ‘understand and engage with the public interest issues which Mr Ahmad’s case engages’.

The judges agreed, saying the case was ‘highly exceptional’. The Ministry of Justice will pay lawyers’ costs in the case, thought to total around £100,000.

It is the first time a camera crew has been allowed to interview an inmate in a maximum-security prison. Ahmad used the interview to demand that he should be put on trial in the UK.

He said: ‘I am facing extradition to the U.S. to spend the rest of my life in solitary confinement. I have never been questioned about the allegations against me.

‘I do not hold the Americans responsible for anything that has happened to me, but I think it is fair to say that I am fighting for my life – and I am running out of time.’

He also denied he supported ‘terrorism’ but refused to say if he ran the website. ‘I believe terrorism to be wrong and I believe the targeting and killing of innocent people to be wrong,’ he said.

Unidentified family members of Ahmad attended his trial where it was alleged that he was in possession of a document detailing a US naval battle group

Ahmad, who was born in Tooting, South London, went to Bosnia to fight during the civil war in the early 1990s.

He was arrested at his home by the police in December 2003, when officers attacked him. He was later given a £60,000 payout by the Met because of the beating he endured.

He was released after six days but arrested the following year on the U.S. warrant. On Tuesday the European Court of Human Rights will rule whether he and five other terror suspects, including radical preacher Abu Hamza, can be sent for trial.

The court will rule whether the prospect of life imprisonment without parole and incarceration in a U.S. ‘supermax’ prison constitute a breach of human rights.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘A request for an interview inside the prison was initially rejected by the Ministry of Justice.

‘We went to judicial review because the case raises matters of significant public interest, including the extradition of British citizens to be tried in other countries and the length of detention without charge or trial.

‘A TV interview is important as it gives audiences the context to make up their own minds on what they have seen and heard. The judges agreed with our position, ordering the MoJ to pay costs.’

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
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Why did he go to Bosnia while a full scale civil war was raging? I suppose he must have been on holiday…

– Tel Itasitis, The Disunited Kingdom, 06/4/2012 10:20

To Lin of Bromley. You are right he should be tried or extradited. But the BBC have shot themselves in the foot over this, as they expose that they support their own brand of terrorism and admit he has been in prison for 8 years, 6 of them under Labour. Ask yourself why did they not roll out Labour Home Ministers like Jack Straw to answer for this? I am sure Jack Straw et al are making up their excuses if this BBC agenda story continues to run.

– Colin, Wolverhampton, 06/4/2012 10:17

I greatly resent being compelled by law to pay a tax to fund the left-wing political campaigning by the BBC. It is effectively the broadcast wing of the Labour and Liberal parties. It is time this affront to democracy was stopped.
– Son of Boudicca, Cardiff UK, 06/4/2012 How many times do you people need to be told ! You dont need to have a tv license just disconnect your reception to the BBC and you wont receive their programmes

– chris , London , 06/4/2012 10:13

I greatly resent being compelled by law to pay a tax to fund the left-wing political campaigning by the BBC. It is effectively the broadcast wing of the Labour and Liberal parties. It is time this affront to democracy was stopped. – Son of Boudicca, Cardiff UK, 6/4/2012 8:38 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Not to mention other wayward anti British minority groups.

– Tel Itasitis, The Disunited Kingdom, 06/4/2012 10:13

BBC should be privatised and be answerable to shareholders then they would not be spending and wasting (taxpayers) money indiscriminately.

– mari, london, 06/4/2012 09:57

Glad to see that the DM doesn’t let it’s campaign for open justice get in the way of yet another tiresome beeb-bash.

– Tim Ball, Buxton, 06/4/2012 09:23

Just like the government- “Its only taxpayers money- it doesn’t cost US anything” and we the public are forced by law to pay for this Biased Broadcasting Quango. IT is time it was Privatised and the Fatcat overpaid Hogs put out to grass!!!

– England-and-St.George, Derby, 06/4/2012 09:12

sometimes, information is the most useful thing you can have. and sometimes information costs money.

– Dill, Brixham, 06/4/2012 08:50

– Son of Boudicca, Cardiff UK, 06/4/2012 08:38

The BBC ?, gullible, making their own news more than reporting it. This sort of spin on a legal matter, that the lawyers are rubbing their hands over as they coin it in, is a waste of readers/viewers time. You only get their twisted view of these sort of cases in the 20 mins they broadcast about such matters. I noticed Kirsty Wark was fronting it before I switched off, enough said.

– A pox on the political elite, Warks., 06/4/2012 08:11

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