A student who was arrested and held for seven days after downloading an edited version of terrorism manual from a US Government website as part of his research has received £20,000 in an out of court settlement with the police.
Rizwaan Sabir was arrested three years ago after downloading ‘The Al-Qaeda Training Manual’ available in book form from Amazon for his postgraduate research into terrorist tactics at the University of Nottingham. Sabir was in the process of preparing his forthcoming PhD proposal and was being advised by his friend and university administrator, Hicham Yezza.
Sabir often sent Yezza copies of documents he was using for his research and the Al-Qa’ida manual was one of them. On May 14, 2008, the document was noticed on Yezza’s computer by a colleague and as a result the university authorities notified the police.
Yezza and Sabir were arrested under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of being involved in the “commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.” Both men were eventually released
on May 20, although Yezza was rearrested on unrelated immigration issues.
Sabir now studying at the University of Strathclyde subsequently brought proceedings against Nottinghamshire Police for false imprisonment and breaches of the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Human Rights Act 1998. In a statement to The Muslim News Sabir’s solicitor, Michael Oswald, said the case presented “one example of the way in which the War on Terror has been allowed to pervert the rule of law over recent years.
“Clearly, the police have a difficult and important job to do in their counter terrorism role, however, they must nonetheless act within the law and must be held to account when they do not. Through his remarkable effort and fierce determination over the last three years, Mr Sabir has been able to hold the police to account for their failings. This result is nothing more than the clear vindication to which he is entitled.”
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