Terror leader uses Human Rights Act to stay free in Britain

LONDON — A convicted Al Qaeda terror fund-raiser with links to the Paris attacks is residing in the United Kingdom after using the Human Rights Act to prevent his deportation back to his native Algeria, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Baghdad Meziane, who was jailed for 11 years in 2003 for running a terror support network, has successfully staved off Home Office attempts to deport him — despite the Government’s insistence he constitutes a danger to the UK.

Meziane was a close associate of Djamel Beghal, a convicted terrorist who mentored two of the Paris attackers while they were in jail together. The pair lived close to each other in Leicester and Meziane, 49, once supplied Beghal with a false passport allowing him to travel to an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.

The Home Office has attempted to remove Meziane, a father of two children born in the UK, for almost six years following his release from jail in 2009. However, it has been thwarted by Meziane’s claim that his deportation would breach his human rights to a family life and that he might face torture if sent home.

Britain was put on heightened alert following the attacks in Paris and an armed police raid in Belgium last week in which two terrorist were killed.

Security is being stepped up across Britain for police officers, who have been warned they may be targeted by terrorist gunmen, and in Jewish areas, where patrols have been increased at schools and synagogues.

The attacks have raised concerns Britain’s security and intelligence agencies may not have sufficient powers to tackle the terrorist threat.

Mr Jonathan Evans, the former head of MI5, yesterday warned that Britain’s anti-terror laws are “no longer fit for purpose” as it is becoming easier for jihadists plotting attacks to evade the intelligence services and the police.

The disclosure that Meziane, a convicted terror fund-raiser, has managed to stay in the UK sparked condemnation. Professor Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at Buckingham University, said: “It is extraordinary that this person should be in the UK and a serious threat to our national security given what we know about the way the attacks on Charlie Hebdo were organised.

“The proper definition of human rights legislation is the right to be free from terrorists and the right to go about our normal business without fear of being attacked. It is simply unacceptable that this is being done in the name of the European Convention of Human Rights,” he said.

A Home Office spokesman confirmed Meziane remained in the country but would give no details. A Home Office source insisted: “We are in the process of removing Meziane.”

Meziane had close links to Beghal, who converted Amedy Coulibaly, the killer of four hostages in a kosher supermarket as well as a policewoman, to radical Islam while in jail. He also influenced Cherif Kouachi, one of the two brothers who slaughtered Charlie Hebdo staff. The SUNDAY Telegraph