Worrying language on terror and the law in The Times

As a netviber and general Internet addict, I rarely pick up an actual paper and ink newspaper. Sure I read the comment and opinion sections of around a dozen newspapers a day but I don't read their news coverage, that I get more instantly and elsewhere. Today was different. I happened to be waiting for a bus in Kensington to take me home, so I bought an actual copy of the Times. On page three there is a terrifying headline: "Second top al-Qaeda man to be freed". Under this shocking revelation is a photo of a kafiyeh clad gunman and another of two gunmen guarding an entrance. This signifies in the Western mind: "evil scary terrorist, lock him away". So I read the article and its actually more alarming than the headline and photos make it out to be, but admitted in a completely different fashion. The article starts by stating that "secret negotiations have taken place to arrange the release of ... one of al-Qaeda's most important operatives in Europe". So the poor guy, who for legal reasons can't be named and is referred to simply as U, has been downgraded from Bin Laden himself (Zawahiri is really the top man) to "one of the". But, hey, its a terror story so accuracy or consistency aren't important. These "secret negotiations" are actual just lawyers haggling over bail terms. Our security services want him to have a round the clock curfew. He won't be allowed outside. So why is he being bailed you ask? What crime is he awaiting trial for? Well they tried to extradite him to the US to face charges, but then the only key witness linking him to the attempted LA airport bombings dropped his claims. So the US has nothing on him. He's our problem. So we try to deport him back to his native Algeria, from whence he sought asylum. But that didn't work because the appeals court overturned the decision. So, the British Government can't send him elsewhere, and can't detain him indefinitely.

What I find so absurd, and so creepy and this whole thing is that if he were such a clear cut figure linked to the LA airport plot or Strasbourg Christmas market plot, then he would be able to be convicted somewhere. Even if he can't be convicted of terrorist activity, the Times cites that he once tried to board a plan to Saudi Arabia with a fake passport. At addresses "linked to him", whatever that means, they found "fake credit cards, a telescopic rifle sight and other terrorist paraphernalia". Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest they found nothing of any consequence. How can fake credit cards be terrorist paraphernalia. Sean O'Neill, the writer of the article, is attempting to suggest to the reader far more than the evidence is. He's not outright lying but he's presenting the alleged facts in a very suggestive manner.

The facts are these. There is no evidence to convict this man. An Appeals court of this country has decided that he is not a sufficient threat to national security to have to be deported back to the land from which he claimed asylum. Neither the Germans nor the Americans want him extradited to them, because (I strongly suggest) they don't have enough evidence to convict him of anything. If he's a genuine threat to national security, then it shouldn't be so hard to catch him at it, if not we're got to realise that the Judiciary of this country has made a decision based on legality and fact and the Times is presenting this as if OBL himself were about to be set free on the streets, next week, in a murderous Jihadi rampage. That is not only dreadful reporting, but symptomatic of the bad and lazy way "terror" stories are reported. "Second top al-Qaeda man to be freed" makes the whole of page three. "Alleged terrorist's deportation order overturned on lack of evidence" does not make a big page three story. Its moment like these that I'm sickened and scared of much of the journalistic world.

Don't get me wrong, I love a great number of journalists, but reporting like this is just dire. Well...
Don't hate the media, become the media.