The Guardian today got terribly excited about a comment made by lawyer Ben Emmerson in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission hearing that granted bail to a mentally ill terrorism suspect, Mahmoud Suliman Ahmed Abu Rideh. Its front page splash declared:

'Terror suspects detained without trial will choose to remain in prison rather than be granted bail on the condition that they live under house arrest, a special court was told yesterday. Ben Emmerson QC, who was representing two detainees seeking bail, said the pair would prefer to remain behind bars in Belmarsh if the alternative was the isolation and claustrophobia of house arrest. Speaking at a hearing in London of the special immigration appeals commission, Mr Emmerson said he believed other suspects who are detained without charge would take the same course'.

What the Guardian omitted to report was that when the Commission chairman Mr Justice Ouseley asked Emmerson incredulously whether his clients really would prefer to stay in Belmarsh rather than go home under house arrest, he backed down and conceded that this was unlikely.

Meanwhile, the admirable legal editor of the Telegraph, Joshua Rozenberg*, spotted what other papers missed at that hearing. He reported:

'Yesterday Mr Emmerson, for Abu Rideh, asked Siac to prevent the press from reporting any of the detailed medical evidence in the court's written judgment, even though it had already been disclosed in open court. The application for reporting restrictions was opposed by The Daily Telegraph and dismissed by Mr Justice Ouseley, Siac's chairman, after a brief hearing. Mr Emmerson argued that publication would breach his client's right to respect for his private life under Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention, while the newspaper maintained that this was outweighed by its right under Article 10 to impart information about a court that often sat in closed session'.

So here was a 'human rights' lawyer, of the camp that normally screams blue murder about secret trials and Britain's quasi-police state, asking for this hearing to be made secret simply to censor information detrimental to his client which had already been made public!

Why do I get the strong feeling that these terrorism cases are being increasingly manipulated by human rights lawyers into a politicised circus?

*Author's husband