A terror suspect last night won a human rights case to have his tag removed – because he thinks MI5 has put a bomb inside it.
A judge said the dangerous preacher has mental health problems, and wearing the electronic monitoring device was making him ‘delusional’.
He ruled this amounted to a breach of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act, which is meant to prohibit torture.
As a result, the Somalian-born extremist will be free to walk the streets untagged despite still being rated a grave threat to the public.
The judge also lifted a ban on the imam’s children having an iPad or laptop – intended to stop him poisoning minds on the internet – because it was stopping them from making friends as well as affecting their education.
The case sparked fury at Westminster, with Tories saying it showed why the Human Rights Act must be scrapped.
The man, a supporter of the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab extremist group who is known only as DD, was placed under a T-Pim terrorism prevention order almost two years ago. DD is one of only two terror suspects under a T-Pim.
The refugee is suspected of radicalising and recruiting vulnerable young people from Europe and making a powerful contribution to propaganda campaigns for al-Shabaab which is engaged in extremist missions in Somalia and around east Africa.
The purpose of the tag was to allow the police and security services to monitor his movements and enforce restrictions on where he can go. He is considered such a threat he is banned from parts of Birmingham and Leicester.
But Mr Justice Collins ruled that requiring the 39-year-old to continue wearing the ankle tag now breached his human rights because of a worsening mental illness and delusional thoughts.
The judge said there was medical evidence that DD had psychotic and unusual beliefs that the tag was there to punish him. In particular, he believed it contained a camera and a bomb, and voices and noises emanated from it.
Two doctors accepted that DD was not exaggerating his symptoms. There was no doubt that the tag might produce a further deterioration and result in serious self-harm, Mr Justice Collins ruled.
But he refused to lift the T-Pim itself. Jonathan Hall QC, representing the Home Secretary, said the advice from MI5 was that the T-Pim had ‘significantly reduced DD’s ability to spread propaganda, radicalise, recruit and fundraise’.
Conservative MP Peter Bone said the case showed why the Tories need to get on with scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights.
He told the Mail: ‘It just beggars belief. This man is so dangerous we have to monitor him – but we cannot monitor him with a tag which is regularly fitted on minor criminals?
'The idea this is something that amounts to torture is completely absurd.’
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We are disappointed with the verdict of the court that certain restrictions to which the individual was subject should be removed.
‘But the court found there was sufficient evidence to support the national security case to impose and keep in place a T-Pim notice. Restrictions on this individual’s activities to protect the public remain in place.’
By James Slack
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material
