More Terror Raids in Manchester
Article published: Monday, November 16th 2009
At around 4 o’clock this morning the police arrested five men under the Terrorism Act 2000. Four of them were detained in Greater Manchester by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, while the other was arrested near Heathrow Airport. According to police there is “no direct threat against Greater Manchester”.
According to the BBC, about 40 officers were involved in the raids which police claim were connected to an overseas threat. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) say men aged 21, 27, 52 and 62 were arrested in Fallowfield, Stalybridge, Longsight and Deane in Bolton respectively, while 26-year-old man was arrested in a hotel near Heathrow. An address on the Stockport Road in Levensulme is also being searched. The 62-year-old taken into custody in Bolton is said to be a Muslim preacher who teaches across the region.
This morning’s events are nothing new in the Northwest, and follow in the footsteps of a number of raids over the past five years. The 2004 “Man U Suicide Bomb Plot” (headline provided by The Sun) saw 10 keen Man Utd fans arrested in a flat on Upper Brooke Street, who were found completely innocent of planning to blow up Old Trafford.
2009 has already seen two botched terror operations. In February the “Viva Palestina” convoy, taking aid to Gaza after Israel’s brutal assault over the new year, was stopped near Preston under anti-terror legislation. This time all nine were released without charge, though the incident caused an 80% drop in donations to the humanitarian group.
Finally there was the high-profile operation which saw 12 Pakistani men detained across the Northwest in early April. Despite having no charges brought against them, the government has been attempting to deport 10 of the detainees ever since, on the grounds of ‘national security’, though the Home Office has refused to provide any evidence of this. Speculation at the time, such as that of former British diplomat Craig Murray, suggested the raids to be politically motivated.
The campaign group Justice for the North West 10 have been fighting the deportations for months, and founder member Tariq Mehmood told MULE back in August: “This is a political case, not a legal one. Everyone thinks they are being held as terrorists – that’s how the government has portrayed it – when in fact this is an immigration case, much of it relating to visas.”
Manchester Evening News understand the operation to be “part of an investigation into terror training camps in Afghanistan which may have led to a terror plot overseas”. The MEN‘s interviews with neighbours who know those in custody seem to suggest they are very surprised by the arrests.
Considering the government and police’s record with terror raids in the Northwest, and the mainstream media’s lack of coverage of the outcomes of previous arrests, MULE will be watching with interest what happens next with the latest batch…
Andy Lockhart
Comments
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oh dear not again, how long before they have to admit that it was all just another fuck up.
Comment by Brian on November 16, 2009 at 7:45 pm -
Lets see how this one pans out: there have been a lot of innocent people arrested on spurious terror charges in recent years. The media tends to be very loud about it when they’re taken in, and very quiet when they’re let out with their lives ruined.
Pay a visit to this site http://www.j4nw10.org for a poignant example!
Comment by andyb on November 17, 2009 at 6:36 pm
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