Britain Detains 10 Foreigners

LONDON – British authorities on Thursday said they’d detained and planned to deport 10 foreigners suspected of posing a threat to national security.

A spokeswoman for the Home Office refused to identify the 10 detained foreigners or say what threat they posed. But she said that some of the 10 had been subject to control orders, a form of house arrest.

A British judge on Thursday ordered Haroon Rashid Aswat, a terror suspect sought by U.S. authorities, to remain in custody until Sept. 8.

The wife and the sister-in-law of one of the suspected July 21 bombers, meanwhile, were among 10 detainees who were to appear in court later Thursday, charged with failing to disclose information about terrorism suspects.

At Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, Yeshiemebet Girma, 29, the wife of suspected Shepherd’s Bush subway station bomber Hamdi Issac, was due to appear with her sister Mulumebet, 21. Issac, also known as Osman Hussain, is being held in Rome, and British authorities are seeking his extradition.

Among the eight other detainees due in court, three are also charged with assisting a person in evading arrest.

The three main suspects in the failed July 21 bomb attacks who are in British custody appeared in court earlier this week. Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, Ramzi Mohammed, 23, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, were ordered to remain in custody until Nov. 14 on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possessing or making explosives and conspiracy to use explosives on July 21. They face life in prison if convicted.

Aswat, 30, spoke at a preliminary extradition hearing only to confirm his name. He is accused by U.S. authorities of conspiring to set up a camp in Bly, Ore., in 1999-2000 to provide training in weapons, hand-to-hand combat and martial arts for Islamic militants aiming to fight in Afghanistan.

Aswat was deported from Zambia over the weekend and arrested by British police under the U.S. warrant. He has said he would contest the extradition and he denies the U.S. allegations.

So far, British police have not charged anyone in connection with the July 7 bombings, which killed 56 people, including the four attackers.

Britain’s Immigration Service on Thursday detained 10 foreigners in operations in London and the West Midlands, Bedfordshire and Leicestershire regions.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in a statement that Britain had received assurances from the countries where it planned to send the detainees that they would not be subjected to torture or ill treatment.

A spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police said officers helped the Immigration Service operation at seven addresses in the capital. Immigration officials detained several individuals, but no arrests were made, the spokesman said. A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police refused to comment on the case.

Last week, as part of a crackdown in the wake of the London bombings, Prime Minister Tony Blair announced measures to deport radical Islamic extremists.

As a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, Britain is not allowed to deport people to a country where they may face torture or death. But Blair said he was hoping to win pledges from countries that deportees would not be subjected to inhumane treatment. An agreement has already been reached with Jordan, and London is currently talking to Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt.