Feeding the Beast: Getting Prosecutions Right and Wrong

Friend and colleague Raffaello Pantucci had a new piece in The Guardian earlier this week, mysteriously titled ‘Appearance is key in tackling terrorism‘ by the sub-editors, but well worth the read nonetheless. Raff tackles the problems of evidence in trials of terrorism suspects and the detrimental signals failed prosecutions can send:

The UK continues to face a long-term threat from violent terrorism. The question must increasingly be asked about whether we are actually pursuing the strategy to counter this in a coherent way. Given the fight is ultimately one that will take a long time to conclude and will involve persuading a section of society that its government is not at war with it, the fewer blunders that are made along the way that seem to support this narrative, the better.

Absolutely true, and it remains the case that such prosecutions must satisfy a high legal threshold before coming to court. My impression is that this is the case and the Crown Prosecution Service has largely abandoned frivolous prosecutions. Despite protestations that the recent trial, for example, of the so-called 7/7 plotters, found no-one guilty, it’s worth remembering this:

And finally, last month, in a dramatic series of raids, police arrested a group of 12 mostly Pakistani students accusing them of being involved in a major “terrorist plot”. The evidence, it turned out, was not there, and now nine of the men are facing deportation on visa issues.

For those of a conspiratorial bent, this will all provide much sustenance to the belief that much of this so-called terrorism is in fact alarmism targeting innocent Muslims. The reality, however, is that aside from the Pakistani students, in each case a jury found some elements of the plots credible and the men guilty. The problem, however, lies more in the presentational aspect of how these are played out in the arena of public debate – the only one that really matters when fighting an ideology as well as individual terrorist cells.

I made a similar point in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa last week [Italian html, pdf; dubious English translation here]. No-one may have been found guilty of the 7/7 bombings themselves but several of the individuals were in fact successfully prosecuted for attending terrorist training camps in Pakistan – whether you like it or not, prohibited under British law.