How the ‘war on terror’ backfired

Any MPs still wavering over the 42-day detention issue should pay attention to the disturbing chain of events that has unfolded at Nottingham University during the last fortnight.

The story begins on May 14, when a postgraduate student at the university named Rizwaan Sabir was arrested in a joint operation by the West Midlands Counter Terrorist Unit and Nottinghamshire police, accused of downloading and printing the 1,500-page 'Al-Qaeda training manual' from a US government website.

Sabir had printed the document as part of his research into Islamic radical movements, with the help of Hicham Yezza, a 30-year-old Algerian national currently employed at the School of Modern Languages.

Despite the fact that the 'manual' was freely available, a member of staff informed the police, both men were arrested on suspicion

of possessing 'material useful for terrorism'. Though Sabir's own tutors affirmed that he was using the document for research purposes, the two were held for six days, their houses searched and their computers confiscated.

On May 20 both men were released without charge, but Yezza was handed over to the immigration authorities for unspecified irregularities in his visa status. Yezza was due to challenge these allegations in a legal hearing on July 16. Last Friday however, the Home Office informed his solicitor that he had been taken to the Coinbrook Immigration Removal Centre and was scheduled to be deported to Algeria this Sunday.

The reasons for this decision are not known and both the Home Office and the police have declined to comment, but there is no obvious explanation for the sudden urgency.

Known as 'Hich' to his friends