29/04/2008
Since his acquittal in the ‘ricin’ plot, Detainee W has been the victim of a relentless campaign by the government to implicate him as a threat to national security. Facing each challenge that has been presented, he has successfully managed to prove his innocence at all stages of his detention. Despite his efforts, he is still being held under an extremely harsh bail order which only allows him to leave his home for three hours a day – his life has been made miserable by the severity of the sanctions placed upon him. He spoke exclusively to Cageprisoners in this interview.
CP: Could you please introduce yourself?
W: I am known as Detainee W – this was the letter designated to me under SIAC rules. I am 37 years old.
CP: What is your nationality? Are you a UK citizen or resident?
W: I am an Algerian national, but I am a refugee in the UK since September 1999.
CP: What was your occupation prior to your arrest?
W: I worked in a restaurant a couple of times in 2000 and 2001.
CP: When were first taken into custody?
W: It was in 2003 due to the ‘ricin case’, when I was held in prison for two years and three months.
CP: What were the circumstances of the arrest?
W: It was January 2003 in the morning time, at around 11am, in Enfield, when six civilian clothed police officers arrested me and told me that I was being taken for reasons of related to terrorism. They took me to Paddington Green for seven days and they finally charged me for being involved with ricin.
CP: How long did the ricin case last for?
W: In 2003, I was arrested and they finally released me in April 2005.
CP: What happened in the ricin case?
W: That case is finished now – they did not have any evidence whatsoever for anything they were saying about us. Five people were originally charged for the ricin with one being convicted of being a public nuisance, but the other four of us were acquitted. There was no ricin.
CP: What happened after you were released?
W: I was released in 2005 when I was free for a few months when in September 2005 the Immigration police rearrested me for immigration offences. Maybe 25/30 policemen came to arrest me at 5am when I was leaving for morning prayers. They said they were taking me for immigration offences to Belmarsh prison for one day, when I was taken to Long Lartin prison. I was in Long Lartin for four months at which point I was given bail.
CP: After being detained in Long Lartin, you were released and placed under a bail order. What does that mean?
W: They give me a small area with three hours freedom during which time I have to sign in at the police station every day. All it takes is for a police officer to sign me off quickly to say that I have been – but often they will keep me waiting for almost an hour just to make life difficult. I am not allowed to use the telephone or internet or fax machine – it is extremely limited.
CP: You are on bail as part of the SIAC proceedings, what is SIAC?
W: SIAC is an appeal process for a deportation order and I am being threatened with deportation to Algeria. They say that I am a threat to national security. There is no evidence against me; all the government used was supposition after supposition. They have no evidence against me.
CP: What are the allegations against you?
W: They go back to the ricin! They are still using it. They say that in the flat with the ricin there were blank papers that had his finger prints on it as well as a bottle of acetone. If my fingerprints were indeed there on that paper, then it was from the mosque as the paper had come from the mosque and acetone is used for the printer. They said I must have been in the flat and yet I did not even know this flat existed. They did nothing to prove I was in the flat – they did not even bother to use DNA evidence to try and place me there! The other thing they say against me is that Bourgass (the man convicted of being a public nuisance) had a bus ticket that had my phone number on it – I have never spoken to Bourgass on the phone and he has never called me. The police have done nothing to find out who could have written that number.
CP: What are your fears of being sent back to Algeria?
W: There could be many problems. They have detained me here as part of a terrorism investigation and if I go to any country there would be great difficulty for me. I had done my national service in Algeria, I had not come to the UK in order to avoid that, but my father was ill and I became the bread-winner of the family and another letter came saying that I had to come back for more service and I refused to go. I was forcibly taken to join the army to arrest supposed Islamic militants and during one fracas I deserted. I threw my gun in a lake and ran away. The army took my brother and he was subjected to horrible torture.
In the immigration sector there is a culture of disbelief – they don’t want to believe my story; they don’t want to believe the trauma we have been through in Algeria. I was hit on the head when I was hit for not wanting to kill Muslims.
CP: How has being under a bail order affected you?
W: I am not too bad now – but before I couldn’t even walk properly. I used to shuffle around, murmuring to myself and looking behind me all the time, I was in a really terrible place.
CP: Do you have any message for the public?
W: I am only allowed three hours where it is insisted that I sign on between 1-2pm. They have literally taken 55 minutes before for me to be signed off. If I go and ask sometimes they are nice but most of the time they ignore me and tell me to wait. It takes all of 10 seconds to sign. There is always pressure whether I will be late to get to the police station or whether I will make it back home in time due to my tag. I have to press a black box when I leave and return. People cannot visit me unless they are cleared – it took eight months for that to happen. When I have a medical appointment, in order to be cleared I have to tell the authorities which road I am going to walk down, how long I will be in that road, which road I am going to turn into, how long I will be in that road and so on. It is horrible what they are doing.
I love nature, animals, birds, and so on. I would love to be working, because my greatest concern is that of my mother who is alone since my father died. It is ludicrous to say that I am a national security threat – what is there to stop me from meeting someone bad within the space of the three hours I have free? Nothing at all – so they cannot really be serious that I am a threat because they know that I am not.
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