Originally Posted by punky

TBH the illegal immigrant thing isn't an issue. He happened to be illegal, but I don't think terrorists are more likely to be illegal... It is easy enough to come into this country legally, especially if you are under Al Qaeda, and have plenty off money, access to lawyers, businesses, etc.

Death penalty? Dunno. If he is prison for life without parole, then maybe, but here and now, life in prison means 20 years, and then you get time off for good behavior on that.

I'd like to deport him, because I don't want to give my hard earned money to keep him fed, healthy and happy... I'd rather him be someone else's problem but deporting him probably means he'll end up back in Al Qaeda with a chance to come back...

Originally Posted by Damien

He was an illegal immigrant. As for human rights and the death penalty...its not what we do. A lot of anger is quite rightly directed at this man but killing him for our revenge is not the right thing to do. Simply because it does not make a difference.

Killing someone for revenge is wrong and it doesnt prevent other criminals commiting crimes

Originally Posted by me283

<snip> ... I am going out on a limb here, as there will be the inevitable outpourings from the "human rights" brigade, but am I alone in thinking that this is one case where the death penalty would have been the best thing? ... <snip>

Originally Posted by me283

Who mentioned revenge? The guy is a danger to our society. He was willing to commit genocide on as great a scale as possible. I fail to see how he can ever become a decent member of any society.

As for being watched by MI5... well that's great. Not only will he be an expensive drain on our security services, but what if he manages to get away? Do we trust that his jail term will have rehabilitated him?

True, we don't "do" the death penalty; but in my opinion that's a pity in this case. I wonder how a similar offender would be treated in his own country?

Originally Posted by BBKing

I take it you're opposed to human rights then? Why? You're a human, presumably.

Several things struck me about this case:

1) the 'terrorism' he was allegedly engaged in was extremely minor - he didn't manage to create anything dangerous, was evidently unsupported by al-Qaeda (he had to shoplift to keep himself going, and got nicked for it), plus everyone else brought to trial with him was acquitted or the case dropped.

2) Ricin isn't something you'd expect to cause major casualties - while extremely nasty, it's much less dangerous than a conventional bomb.

3) By far the most serious aspect of the case was the murder of the police officer - this, as a crime, is to my mind far more serious than the 'terrorism' and I'd like to see anyone argue to the contrary. So why was the bringing to justice of a particularly vicious cop killer forcibly kept quiet and the ricin case splashed over the papers?

4) Why did a senior Met anti-terrorism rozzer and the deputy Chief Medical Officer say that ricin had been found in the flat when none had - that's called 'lying', in my book.

5) Why did Colin Powell *in front of the UN* attempt to link the case to Iraq, when there's no evidence for it being anything other than a lone nut who was trained in Afghanistan by a group opposed to Saddam Hussein's regime on ideological grounds?

6) ID cards wouldn't have stopped him killing the policeman or obtaining ricin recipes and it's dishonest to suggest it would for political points scoring.

Originally Posted by Damien

I am not sure what *his countrys* position is on this. You seen to be of the view that all middle easten countrys beat there criminals to death. Anyway, it doesnt matter. We are not in that country, we're in this country where we value human rights and logical justice

Originally Posted by Damien

Why are you against it?

Originally Posted by Damien

Good behaviour? This guy is a terrorist, which means if hes ever let out MI5 will be watching closely. Also this goverment hasnt been to keen to let terrorists walk around the streets.

Originally Posted by punky

I doubt it. He'll probably do 15 years so he'll be next to useless without training. In 15 years time there will be a whole other group of well trained, fit youngsters to take his place.

Originally Posted by me283

Whereas, were he to be sat on Death Row now, those youngsters might not be so keen to take his place...

Originally Posted by me283

That's off-topic, and well-documented elsewhere.