British police seized seven people who are allegedly national security threats today, hours before the government unveiled new plans to hold terrorism suspects without charge for up to three months.
Britain said it would deport the men who are reportedly Algerian. A Home Office source said the men were all former defendants, accused but never convicted, of involvement in a 2002 plot to manufacture the deadly ricin poison.
The arrests at dawn were the latest to follow four July 7th suicide bombings in London which killed 52 people and wounded 700 and prompted a government crackdown on Islamist militants.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said they would not be deported to any place they would face torture. But human rights group Amnesty said the detainees must be allowed to properly challenge the grounds for deportation.
One Algerian was convicted in the ricin case in April after Britain's biggest terrorism trial since September 11th, 2001, but four of his alleged accomplices were acquitted and criminal cases against the other three were dropped.
The seven men will be deported because their presence in Britain is "not conducive to the public good for reasons of national security," an Interior Ministry official said.
Since July's deadly bombings on London's underground and bus network Prime Minister Tony Blair's centre-left government has introduced a string of new measures to tackle terrorism.
Most controversial among the latest proposals is an extension of the time police have to detain terrorism suspects without charge to up to three months from two weeks.