British Prime Minister in waiting Gordon Brown will take a tough stance against terrorism by introducing a slew of hard line measures to fight the scourge when he replaces Tony Blair at the end of this month.
The anti-terror laws to be proposed include extension of the 28-day limit on detention without charge, allow evidence from telephone tapes to be used in court and empower judges with more sentencing power.
Brown will also bring out proposals to allow law enforcers to continue to interrogate terror suspects even after they have been charged with a criminal offence.
Brown will also seek to make terrorism an aggravating factor in sentencing, in a similar way to when a racist motivation in an attack on a person allows judges to give harsher sentences. The more lenient outgoing premier Tony Blair has hesitated over whether to endorse the use of secret phone tapes, which at present is not permissible in court.
Intercept evidence
While the issue has divided cabinet members, security chiefs and senior police officers, one of the chancellor’s first acts will be to launch a cross-party review of such “intercept” evidence. The panel, which will be expected to report within a few months, will be made up of ‘Privy Council’ members, mostly former cabinet ministers.