English hooligan suspects detained

LONDON, England -- British police have stopped 12 people travelling to the World Cup soccer match between England and Germany.

The men were detained at ports and airports and prevented from heading for the game which will be played in Munich on Saturday afternoon.

Police said the men were prevented from travelling because of football violence-related intelligence they had about each man.

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An Essex police spokesman said officers stopped eight men at Stansted airport near London and a further three at Harwich port, east of London.

Another man was stopped at Birmingham airport in the English Midlands. All the men were detained on Thursday.

Essex police were applying for banning orders under the Football (Disorder) Act to stop nine of the 11 men they detained from travelling to Germany, the spokesman told Reuters.

The other two were arrested on suspicion of committing football disorder-related offences in Britain, he said.

The act, which gave police increased powers to stop known soccer hooligans from travelling, was brought in last year after England fans were involved in violent clashes at the Euro 2000 soccer championship in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Joe Edwards, Assistant Chief Constable (Operations) of Essex police, said more than 200 officers were involved in intelligence work as part of the operation to prevent hooligans travelling to Germany.

He said officers were carrying out checks at ports and airports in an effort to ensure troublemakers were not able to make their way to the game.

"We are basically trying to ensure that anyone who is the subject of a banning order does not travel -- or, indeed, anyone who we feel should be the subject of a banning order," he told the Press Association.

"Basically, I think what we are being asked to do in this country, is to take reasonable steps to make sure we do not export troublemakers.

"We are detaining people on the basis of known information or intelligence we have about them. Hopefully, the bulk of fans will not be unduly troubled by the operation and we hope that what we are doing will help to make the game trouble-free."

In June, hundreds of suspected English football hooligans were banned from travelling to Greece for a World Cup qualifier.

The UK Home Office said more than 450 people were banned under UK law from travelling abroad for football matches and that they had been ordered by mail to hand in their passports at local police stations.