Ricin jurors attack new terror laws

Three jurors in the so-called 'ricin trial', whose acquittal of four Algerian terror suspects in April caused deep embarrassment to the government, police and security service, will condemn the government's new terrorism legislation in their first television interviews tonight.

It is unusual for jurors to speak to the media after a trial, but they have told The Observer they are furious that a number of the defendants have since been re-arrested and imprisoned without trial.

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One juror, speaking anonymously, told the programme: 'Before the trial I had a lot of faith in the authorities to be making the right decisions on my behalf ... having been through this trial I'm very sceptical now as to the real reasons why this new legislation is being pushed through.'

A second added: 'I think they are probably a knee-jerk reaction to the recent terrorist incidents in London ... it's a classic example of the government's need to be seeming to do something to quell comment in the nation at large.'

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Two jurors told The Observer they were shocked when a number of the men they had freed after a seven-month trial were re-arrested earlier this year. One juror said: 'I was dumbfounded ... During the trial there were clearly different degrees of evidence against different defendants. But in a couple of cases, the evidence was so flimsy you couldn't see where the arrest came from in the first place. To re-arrest them seemed totally unreasonable.' A female juror added that the trial revealed failures by the authorities: ' poor intelligence, police having misinformation and not really understanding the background, the government willing something along because of the impending war and it gathered its own momentum ... Now they are trying to justify why the arrests happened.'

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1588258,00.html

The 3 jurors are interviewed for tonights Panorama "Blair vs Blair".

For background, there's also the incredible disappearing Guardian article "The ricin ring that never was" which has been backed up here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8537.htm