Ten years later, it is now clear that the legal systems of western countries have been heavily challenged from within. Hence, principles which were deeply rooted in the judicial tradition and said to be inalienable, have become questionable and are indeed questioned. Thus, we witnessed debates over the use of evidence obtained under torture, the use of secret evidence or imprisonment without charge. All that would be sufficient to realise how easily western governments have dismissed values they asserted to be based upon for centuries.
Nevertheless, those controversies would always be draped in a human rights rhetoric, and despite it looking as a violation of those same rights, it would be claimed to be the only measure to preserve them. But trials of Muslims on terrorism charges have revealed an even graver phenomenon: the sentencing of individuals without any sort of factual evidence. The most worrying is that those condemnations are not hidden or denied by the authorities, but rather we can hear or read public agents or institutions expressing their reasoning officially.
Very recently, we heard Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Porter, head of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, (NWCTU), commenting on the sentencing of the “Manchester four”.
"This was an extremely challenging case, both to investigate and successfully prosecute at court, because we did not recover any blueprint, attack plan or endgame for these men. However, what we were able to prove was their ideology”.
What they were mainly reproached with, was to have expressed (to undercover agents who pretended to have embraced Islam) directly or indirectly, their sentiments against the western invasion in Afghanistan and a support to the local insurgency. As a result, Munir Farooqi was given four life sentences, Malik Israr received an indeterminate sentence and Matthew Newton was jailed for six years.
Unfortunately, such an anomaly is not unique to this case or to the UK. In France, Djamel Beghal had been accused of preparing a bomb attack against the US embassy in Paris on the basis of confessions he gave under torture. In 2005, a court of appeal found him to be a member of a “criminal association in relation with a terrorist undertaking” and sentenced him to ten years of prison (the maximum sentence), which he spent, for most of it, in complete solitary confinement. The rationale of the court to justify its decision is again quite surprising:
“As for Djamel Beghal, the Court observes that the evidence of a project to bomb American interests in Paris (embassy or cultural centre) is not reported by the procedure, except through a statement made by Djamel Beghal before Emirati investigators but obtained under conditions incompatible with the right to defence and which can therefore not be used against him. Nevertheless, it appears from the investigation and the instruction that he is implicated in the most radical Islamist sphere, the one supported by Al Qaeda and which aims have been established to be the destabilisation of western regimes that support the US and Israel”.
No accusation of any form of violence or even of the preparation of any violent act. It is probably because the Court was not interested in such acts. In effect, during his trial, Djamel Beghal was hardly asked about any alleged plots but was rather questioned at length about his religious practice and ideology. Didn’t he agree with “International Jihadism (!?)?” To what tendency of Islam did he belong? Wasn’t he a member of the group Al Takfir wal hijra? The judges took offense when Djamel Beghal which was only exacerbated when the he described himself as being 100 percent Muslim.
Another example occurred during the trial of Safé Bourada, a French citizen, in 2008. He was arrested on the basis of confessions made by M’hamed Benyamina under torture in Algeria. Again, there was no evidence of any planned bomb attack except those statements and the fact that one of the co-accused had spent two weeks in Lebanon.
Nevertheless, those controversies would always be draped in a human rights rhetoric, and despite it looking as a violation of those same rights, it would be claimed to be the only measure to preserve them. But trials of Muslims on terrorism charges have revealed an even graver phenomenon: the sentencing of individuals without any sort of factual evidence. The most worrying is that those condemnations are not hidden or denied by the authorities, but rather we can hear or read public agents or institutions expressing their reasoning officially.
Very recently, we heard Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Porter, head of the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, (NWCTU), commenting on the sentencing of the “Manchester four”.
"This was an extremely challenging case, both to investigate and successfully prosecute at court, because we did not recover any blueprint, attack plan or endgame for these men. However, what we were able to prove was their ideology”.
What they were mainly reproached with, was to have expressed (to undercover agents who pretended to have embraced Islam) directly or indirectly, their sentiments against the western invasion in Afghanistan and a support to the local insurgency. As a result, Munir Farooqi was given four life sentences, Malik Israr received an indeterminate sentence and Matthew Newton was jailed for six years.
Unfortunately, such an anomaly is not unique to this case or to the UK. In France, Djamel Beghal had been accused of preparing a bomb attack against the US embassy in Paris on the basis of confessions he gave under torture. In 2005, a court of appeal found him to be a member of a “criminal association in relation with a terrorist undertaking” and sentenced him to ten years of prison (the maximum sentence), which he spent, for most of it, in complete solitary confinement. The rationale of the court to justify its decision is again quite surprising:
“As for Djamel Beghal, the Court observes that the evidence of a project to bomb American interests in Paris (embassy or cultural centre) is not reported by the procedure, except through a statement made by Djamel Beghal before Emirati investigators but obtained under conditions incompatible with the right to defence and which can therefore not be used against him. Nevertheless, it appears from the investigation and the instruction that he is implicated in the most radical Islamist sphere, the one supported by Al Qaeda and which aims have been established to be the destabilisation of western regimes that support the US and Israel”.
No accusation of any form of violence or even of the preparation of any violent act. It is probably because the Court was not interested in such acts. In effect, during his trial, Djamel Beghal was hardly asked about any alleged plots but was rather questioned at length about his religious practice and ideology. Didn’t he agree with “International Jihadism (!?)?” To what tendency of Islam did he belong? Wasn’t he a member of the group Al Takfir wal hijra? The judges took offense when Djamel Beghal which was only exacerbated when the he described himself as being 100 percent Muslim.
Another example occurred during the trial of Safé Bourada, a French citizen, in 2008. He was arrested on the basis of confessions made by M’hamed Benyamina under torture in Algeria. Again, there was no evidence of any planned bomb attack except those statements and the fact that one of the co-accused had spent two weeks in Lebanon.
During the trial, the prosecutor read lines attributed to Safé Bourada:
“The establishment of an Islamic state would be my dream.”
The French prosecutor immediately commented:
“The dream of Mr Bourada is the very meaning of a criminal association”.
Hence, interestingly enough, it is not really the means sought by Safé Bourada which were problematic to the prosecutor but his aim: the establishment of an Islamic state, what is considered by classical schools of thoughts, to be a central concept in Islam. The prosecutor requested against him what he called a sentence of “social neutralisation” and Safé Bourada was convicted to 15 years of prison.
Such sentences have become a common feature in these cases as evidenced through the four life sentences given to Munir Farooqi, described by the judge as a “dangerous man” for not supporting the right troops. Similarly, the treatment reserved for Djamel Beghal also shows that: held in complete solitary confinement for almost all his sentence, he was about to be deported to Algeria despite the fact he was at risk of torture there. Being legally impossible, this deportation was cancelled at the very last moment before the French authorities sought to exile him to Cayenne (formally used as a penal colony). However, there was no sufficient time to administrate him the required vaccines and he was placed under house arrest for over a year. He was eventually rearrested on flawed evidence and placed under complete solitary confinement again.
It also goes back to the idea of a “preventive justice” advocated by some Italian criminologists in the 19th century as some individuals would be intrinsically wicked, born criminals as shown by the size of their skull, the shape of their bones and the space between their eyes. It really seems that in the terrorism related cases, the judicial philosophy has shifted back to that kind of reasoning and focuses more on the individual than on his actions to characterise a crime. Physical features or behaviour can testify against him (such as a beard too prominent or a certain shyness towards women), but are only scrutinised in order to find the inner belief and ideology of those men and it is indeed this ideology which will be judged and condemned.
A concern too pronounced for the tribulations of the Muslim communities or even worse an open support to their right to self determination will be deemed as a mark of dangerousness and terrorist inclinations that should be sanctioned in the harshest manner. Meanwhile, it will be reminded in the media that those individuals are suspected of such and such attack plan or to have trained or send people to train in such and such camp, even though there is officially no factual evidence for those claims, so that confusion is maintained.
In conclusion, if there is no material evidence to support even the existence of a bomb attack plan or any violent actions, except the religious practice of those Muslim men and their views on the western military presence in Muslim countries, then they should not be labelled as terrorists but rather they should judged for what they are: dissidents imprisoned for the opinions they hold in the name of their faith. In other words, political prisoners...
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