More thoughts on the Siddique trial

A number of people this week have been questioning whether Atif Siddique really is a terrorist, quite apart from the legal definition.

As previously noted, there was no plot and no bombs or bullets involved. I think even some of those on the inside came to this conclusion too judging by the leaked details of Siddique's intention, as they put forward, to bomb Canada and to behead their prime minister. This was not presented during the trial, but given to the media by anonymous sources after the verdict. It suggests to me a lack of confidence in the public case for Siddique's guilt. Normally these type of leaks take place after an arrest, not after a conviction.

This week we also had the conviction and sentencing of another terrorist, Miles Cooper. You may remember earlier this year he sent letter bombs to a number of organisations including the DVLA and the company that operates speed cameras. It led to those not normally known for being sympathetic to terrorists such as Rod Liddle and Richard Littlejohn, to ruminate in their columns about the kind of transport tyranny that had led Cooper to his actions.

Cooper, despite his use of explosives, was not tried under the Terrorism Acts. He got only five years as a result. Neither was the BNP's Robert Cottage who got two-and-a-half despite the discovery of chemical explosives at his home. Callum Atikinson who worked for the Home Office's Immigration and Nationality Directorate avoided jail altogether despite being in possession of explosives.

Had any of these three been Muslim they would have been tried under the Terror Acts, and spent decades in prison. It's salutatory to note that in all the debates about how Muslims are supposedly not integrated, this blatant act of segregation by the legal system goes totally unremarked on.

UPDATE: See also Humza Yousaf's letter in the Herald today

Comments

[bat020]

Re "Cooper, despite his use of explosives, was not tried under the Terrorism Acts... "

The key point here is that possessing explosives and building bombs has been illegal for a very very long time. So whenever someone is actually caught red handed with this stuff, they are tried under earlier legislation. The Terrorism Acts are only used when there's little or no hard evidence - indeed they were brought in for that purpose, to make it easier to jail people for association with "extremism" (and of course it's only "Muslim extremists" that ever get charged).

[joe90]

lenin of the Tomb
drew my attention to this article in The Socialist Worker -
Mohammed Atif Siddique: civil rights queries over ‘terrorist’ conviction
25 Sept 2007

If you are a Muslim, and you read the above SW article please be careful not to visit the website it mentions or, heaven forbid, you do visit it and actually download any material from it, because if you do, then you will be a 'terrorist' according to New Labour's brilliant new anti-terrorist laws.

And it seems as if Mohammed Atif Saddiq, whilst in Scottish Police custody, was subjected to a sleep-deprivation and starvation regime reminiscent of the torture techniques used by the old Soviet Union and the KGB.

[joe90]

I was just musing
on the different treatments accorded by the British state to 'terrorists' and to British-Jewish folk who emigrate to Israel and join the Israel Defence Force - the world's most notorious gang of racist thugs, ethnic cleansers, war criminals and genocidists.

Here is Umkahlil with some trenchant analysis -
God Forbid A Rights Based Solution For Palestinians
Umkahlil blogspot
30 Sept 2007

Umkahlil refers in her first paragraph to a former Brit, now a violent racist thug in the IDF, and now with his very own Guardian 'Comment is Free' column. I believe he got his Guardian spot through the good offices of another racist supremist, Linda Grant, who like Melanie Phascist, is a racist propagandist masquerading as a journalist.

Obvioulsy,
Mohammed Atif Siddique, if he did anything wrong, which I very much doubt, was to refuse to be a cheerleader for the British government's favourite violent racist war criminal regime.

As we all know, terrorists crimes are nothing compared to war crimes.

See also both these recent articles hosted on the PIWP database (at Cork University I believe) -
Israel's Toy Soldiers
and
The British children who train to fight in Israel

I feel safer already!

ps
I believe violent racist lunatics from France go on holiday every year to the illegal Israeli 'settler' colony in Hebron, Palestine and participate in the racist terrorist rampages against the locals, protected by the brave Israeli Occupation Force - tourist terrorism!

pps
Eight More Wrongly Imprisoned Men are Quietly Released
The Anonymous Victims of Guantánamo
by Andy Worthington
CounterPunch
05 Oct 2007

[Graham MacKenzie Spence]

Hi Osama..This is for any new piece you do on Siddiqe
Regards
Graham

The sentence passed on Mohammed Atif Siddique and the reaction to the verdict highlights the polarisation that both the original crime and the reaction to it can create.

A softer sentence aimed at reforming this silly wee laddie who wanted to be a martyr when he grew up would have sent a message that the Scottish legal system was itself grown-up and had a mature outlook that has clearly been missing from everyone else involved.

Aamer Anwar’s claim his client was just looking for answers beggars belief, and his criticism of due process is unlikely to have helped his client in any way. Any lawyer who insults a jury needs to re-examine his grasp of the judicial system and consider his future before The Law Society of Scotland does it for him

Headlines of ‘Islamic Terrorist’ in the mainstream press was not good, and in the Muslim press Esther Sassman’s: ‘..an all-white jury..’ made The Sun look objective, and that Esther is never a good sign. This is not about race. Making it so does not help anyone.

Perhaps a change of lawyer and a sentence appeal with some input from a responsible scholar may be good for both Siddique and society at large. Leaving it as it is will is not help.

[Clackmannanshire]

As someone of the same age as this young person and who lives in the same area and knows his family and spoke to Atif regularly all I can say is this is nothing but curiosity gone wrong and a media frenzy taking grasp.

When discussing this lastnight with my boyfriend who was in Atif's class at school he was absolutely shocked, he couldn't understand how someone who really does see himself as a 'Scottish Muslim' could be targeted as a terrorist because he let his mind wander.

Whilst discussing it today with a 'friend' of the Siddique family this was said: "All I can say is; maybe this will put those idiots off doing it again." These were the words of a supposedly well educated man. The difference is, this sentence will not deter truly fanatical extremists from their actions, infact is this not only going to encourage them? Where as someone on the same level as Siddique will be discouraged by it.

We all sympathise around here with the family but do agree that a sentence should have been imposed although was it really appropriate to make an example of someone who at the start of his so called 'terror campaign' was only 16 and a half years old and not even finished school?