http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22269388

[Ric.ror]

Any thoughts please?

[factor-fiction]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22269388

[Baldric]

I thinks links don't work as a question title

[sp1814]

It's getting bloody ridiculous now.

That's my thought.

[Ric.ror]

Sorry about the link

[mikey4444]

I think this chap is pretty ghastly, although he seems to be using the law to his advantage. But he will probably step out of line, just a little too far in the near future and then any attempt to hide behind fancy lawyers will no longer be effective.

Who is financing all this legal work on his side though ?

[Gromit]

// But he will probably step out of line, just a little too far in the near future //

The thing is, he has never been prosecuted or convicted of anything in all the time he has been here.

[mikey4444]

To quote Hamlet, there in lies the rub !

[Ric.ror]

Now I might be wrong but I thought he was a solicitor

[craft1948]

Personally I'd chuck him on a plane and then ask the courts what they're going to do about it.

[ichkeria]

...on the other hand I;m reminded of the following quote from Thomas More to Roper in "A Man for All Seasons"

"And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and if you cut them down...d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.”

[youngmafbog]

No Gromit, but do you think he should be just left to roam the country?

[sir.prize]

Way back in December when the King of Jordan visited the UK, it was reported that he would bring the assurances needed that torture would not be used.

How long does it take for these assurances to be put in writing?

[Bazile]

I always wonder why we bother to seek assurances from the recipient countries that people we want to deport wont be tortured .

Does anyone really beleive that any assurance will be honured - or is it just simply to comply legally with international law ?

[jake-the-peg]

//Personally I'd chuck him on a plane and then ask the courts what they're going to do about it. //

Send you to prison at a wild guess

[Gromit]

// Gromit, ...do you think he should be just left to roam the country? //

Yes. We would be £5million+ better off. Until 2001 he was helping M15 and they were protecting him from Jordan. (might be why they are not interested in helping us now).

After 9/11, a tape of a Qatada sermon was found in one of the hijackers posessions. And that is why we have locked him up for the last decade. But we do not know what was on the tape, whether it encouraged the hijacks or indeed if it was a jihadist message or purely a religious one.

It is like locking up the Beatles for 12 years because Charles Manson had a tape of Helter Skelter on his tape deck.

[jim360]

I think it's Theresa May showing breathtaking lack of appreciation of how the legal process works. I wonder how many times she has over-ruled the advice of her officials to show more patience -- earlier, if she had waited just one more day then this whole business would have been over. But no, she did not, and thereby gave Qatada the time he needed to lodge an appeal that turned out to be successful.

[sir.prize]

It is annoying that Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (Mrs Balls) spouts off to the TV cameras that Theresa May has done nothing to get rid of Qatada. I don't recall Labour doing much either - despite Qatada being here during 13 years of Labour Government.

Yvette Cooper - as usual talking a load of . . .

[jim360]

To be fair to Labour, they got as far as a legal deportation order, but it was never carried out owing to his appeal to ECHR that lasted about 3 years before a ruling. I'm not sure why it took so long.

[anotheoldgit]

We should put him and his family on a plane to Jordan.

Surely the fine we would have to pay for breaking the rules, would soon pay for it's self by the amount of benefit money, legal fees etc we have to payout while he remains here.

It's time our politicians grew backbones, the French would have no problem, carrying out this small task

[jim360]

It would depend on the size of the fine. The amount of money and benefits Qatada has received is around £500,000, and I think it's quite likely that any fine would be several times larger than that. So I doubt it would be cost-effective for us to break the law. Not only that but it would look a bit hypocritical, if we aren't being already, that we insist on everyone else respecting "human rights" and don't do so ourselves? Wouldn't be very good for our image.

Annoying as it is, we have to either stick to the law, or change it. The treaty signed with Jordan today may well clear things up so that this long and tiresome story can finally be over.