UK considering restricting travel to Pakistan

Published 13 July 2007

UK mulling travel restrictions on suspicious terrorists, criminals to prevent them from going to Pakistan, other countries for terrorist training

We are fretting about DHS no-flight watch list, but U.K. prime minster Gordon Brown is considering introducing a literal no-flight measure in the form of restrictions on offenders travelling to Pakistan and other countries. This is part of an effort to stop radical Muslims going abroad for training by terror groups. Powers to ban those convicted of terror offences from travelling overseas on their release are to be included in a new crime and terrorism bill. Ministers acknowledge, though, that such a measure would not have stopped Muktar Ibrahim, the 7/21 bomb plotter jailed for life yesterday, from going to Pakistan because his previous convictions were for only minor offences.

The Guardian’s Will Woodward and Sandra Laville write that travel to certain countries could be restricted, and those convicted of less serious crimes could be included in a ban. “We may need to go wider than just terrorist offenses,” Brown’s spokesman said.

At prime minister’s question time Wednesday, Brown said he was “looking very carefully” at how Ibrahim was allowed to travel to Pakistan for terror training. Ibrahim, a refugee from Eritrea, was granted a British passport in 2004 despite juvenile convictions. “When he was guilty of crimes in Britain in the early 1990s and later 1990s, under … new laws he would have been deported from this country,” Brown said.

Brown also indicated that he is ready to press ahead with proposals to extend the time police can detain terror suspects without charge. After resisting talk of changes to anti-terror laws during the attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, Brown told MPs he wanted to extend the maximum time for pre-charge detention from the current limit of 28 days.

In November 2005 the House of Lords defeated government plans to extend the maximum pre-charge detention to 90 days. Lord Carlile, the independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, supports an extension with stronger judicial oversight, but the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have resisted that. Other anti-terror measures are likely to be less controversial, including changes to enable post-charge questioning of terror suspects, and enhanced sentences for terrorist-related offences.