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UK seeks emergency detention powers

Cheney said Britain could be targeted because of Blair's support for the U.S.-led war on terror

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Civil liberties campaigners have criticised a plan by the UK government to seek emergency powers to detain terrorist suspects without trial.

The move follows a warning by United States Vice-President Dick Cheney that London's staunch support for the U.S.-led military campaign against Afghanistan could prompt retaliation by al Qaeda.

Home Secretary (Interior Minister) David Blunkett will on Monday seek Parliament's approval to claim a derogation from article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to liberty and prohibits detention without trial.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Tony Blair told the Press Association: "Britain is closed to terrorism, and we will take whatever action we can.

"People will object to it, but we are absolutely determined to get the balance right between human rights, which are important, and society's right to live free from terror."

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The comments came after Cheney told The Sun newspaper on Saturday: "I assume bin Laden is well aware of the effort being made by Britain alongside the United States and leaders of this international effort.

"Obviously the possibility exists that at some point he'll try and launch some kind of attack on the UK."

But John Wadham, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "This is a fundamental violation of the rule of law, our rights and traditional British values."

Under article 15 of the convention, governments are allowed to derogate from, or repeal, article 5 in times of war or other "public emergency."

Blunkett will seek a derogation allowing detention without trial under what a Home Office spokesman told CNN were "very limited circumstances."

These would relate to a situation where a foreign national was suspected of involvement in international terrorism and posed a threat to British national security, but there was no prospect of that individual being returned to their country of origin.

The definition would cover, for example, asylum-seekers suspected of terrorist involvement who could not be sent to their home country due to a well-founded fear that their lives would then be in danger.

Internment without trial has been used before, against Northern Ireland terrorist suspects, and German citizens during World War II.

The public emergency move is one of a series of measures the British government wants to rush through Parliament in response to the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S..

U.S. campaigners have also voiced strong concerns that proposals to expand law enforcement powers to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on civil liberties enjoyed by all Americans.

More than 1,100 people have been detained or arrested in the U.S. as part of the ongoing terrorist investigation.