More time to quiz 'plot' suspects

12 April 2012

A lawyer has criticised the conditions in which the alleged airliner bomb plot suspects are being held, as police were granted a further seven days to question them.

Khalid Elahi said his client Muhammed Usman Siddique, 24, had been subjected to daily strip-searches and suffered both physically and psychologically from long detention.

He was speaking as police were given a further seven days to question five people over the alleged plot to assemble bombs on transatlantic jets.

It is the first time suspects have been held into a fourth week under new anti-terror laws allowing terror suspects to be questioned for up to 28 days.

Mr Elahi said his client had had a "very difficult" 21 days in police custody.

"During this time he has been questioned continuously on a regular basis under extremely difficult conditions," he said.

"These conditions have not been made easier by the fact that the police deem it necessary to strip-search him a number of times on a daily basis and the fact that he has been detained in a police station which is not adequate nor designed for long-term detention.

"If my client is subsequently released without charge or is acquitted by the courts after being charged, the memory of Paddington Green is likely to haunt him for the remainder of his life.

"This lengthy investigation process has affected both his physical and psychological wellbeing and I am minded to take this matter up with the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission).

"I appreciate that the Terrorism Act is a new piece of legislation and everyone is still coming to grips with it, however I do not feel that it is justified for the police to be given a further seven days to question my client."

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