Blair plans to jail terror suspects without trial

LONDON – Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday revived a plan for jailing terror suspects without trial after three men eluded police monitoring and disappeared, but he likely faces a new battle with civil liberties campaigners, judges and political opponents.

Home Secretary John Reid told Parliament that the three men who dropped from sight Monday were suspected of planning to travel overseas to carry out terrorist attacks.

Britain’s “control order” system – a partial house arrest created after judges ruled suspects could not be detained indefinitely without trial – has been exposed as “very much a second best option,” Blair said.

The orders “are not a strong method of keeping people under control,” he told reporters. “If we are going to tackle this terror threat with the seriousness it needs, we need the tough measures necessary to protect this country fully.”

Officials did not specify when proposed new laws would be presented, but Blair’s spokesman said the government was reviewing its options.

Civil liberties campaigners said any attempt to create tougher anti-terror laws risked a new political battle for Blair, who will resign as British leader June 27.

The escaped men, all British citizens, were not thought to pose a direct threat to the British public because they apparently wanted to engage in violence elsewhere, the home secretary said.

But Ian Blair, head of London’s Metropolitan police force and Britain’s most senior police officer, said there was no guarantee the men did “not pose a threat to the U.K.”

Two of the fugitives, Lamine Adam, 26, and Ibrahim Adam, 20, are brothers of Anthony Garcia, who was convicted and jailed for life last month over a plot to bomb a nightclub, power plants and other targets in Britain, police said. The third man was Cerie Bullivant, 24.

They slipped away while being under control orders, a system that has been widely criticized by Cabinet ministers as too lax because it does not allow for 24-hour surveillance by police.

Blair’s government created the system after Britain’s highest court ruled in 2004 that holding suspects in prison without trial was unlawful.