A Jordanian man described by Britain as a "significant international terrorist" won a court appeal on Wednesday against deportation.
Abu Qatada, linked by Britain to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, is one of a group of Arab men the government has been trying to deport on national security grounds, while acknowledging it does not have enough evidence to put them on trial.
The Court of Appeal also upheld the cases of two Libyan men against deportation. The rulings are a setback to British efforts to expel suspected Islamist militants to nations where human rights groups argue they would be at risk of torture.
In Qatada's case, the court said a lower tribunal had been wrong to rule last year that he could obtain an adequate trial in Jordan despite the likelihood that evidence obtained from other people under torture would be used against him.
Home Office Minister Tony McNulty expressed disappointment with Wednesday's rulings. "We will continue to push for deportations for people who pose a risk to national security," he said in a statement.
GOVERNMENT CHALLENGE
He said the government would seek to challenge the decision on Abu Qatada, whom Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon once described as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" but who has denied belonging to al Qaeda.
"I believe that we will be able to secure his deportation to Jordan and we will push for it as soon as possible. In the meantime, he will remain behind bars," McNulty said.
The government has sought to counter rights groups' fears of torture by securing special agreements with the countries concerned that deportees will not be ill-treated.
Gareth Peirce, lawyer for Abu Qatada and one of the two Libyans, said such assurances were unenforceable and offered no redress against "regimes that continue to practice torture".
Asked if the rulings would effectively kill off the government's deportation programme, she said: "That remains to be seen."
Amnesty International researcher David Edwards urged the government to abandon the programme under which, according to the human rights group's figures, at least 12 foreign nationals are facing deportation to Jordan, Libya and Algeria.
"It's a policy that was misguided from the beginning and is very dangerous," he said.
The government case against Qatada described him as a "significant international terrorist" whose presence posed "a continuing threat to national security and a significant terrorism-related risk to the public".
Twice convicted in absentia in Jordan of involvement in terrorist plots, he has been jailed in Britain pending deportation since August 2005.
