{"id":3420,"date":"2008-05-08T15:31:54","date_gmt":"2008-05-08T14:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/ex-mi5-chief-warns-over-detention\/3420\/"},"modified":"2008-05-08T15:31:54","modified_gmt":"2008-05-08T14:31:54","slug":"ex-mi5-chief-warns-over-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/ex-mi5-chief-warns-over-detention\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-MI5 chief warns over detention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"first\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/uk_politics\/7389942.stm\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"3\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/dame-stella.jpg\" hspace=\"3\" alt=\"dame-stella.jpg\" title=\"dame-stella.jpg\" \/>BBC News<\/a> | MPs should work together to agree a detention limit for terror suspects and ensure the matter is not a political football, a former MI5 chief has said. Ministers want to be able to hold suspects without charge for 42 days, rather than the current 28-days.<\/p>\n<p>The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs oppose the change.<\/p>\n<p>Dame Stella Rimington called it &#8220;a huge pity&#8221; the debate had become a political issue, saying security &#8220;was too serious a thing to play party politics with&#8221;. <!-- E SF --><\/p>\n<p>For this reason, she told BBC Radio Nottingham, she would not express an opinion on the present limit, or proposed extensions to 42 or even 60 days.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But I do think they should try and achieve some kind of consensus,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Police &#8216;backing&#8217;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Commons vote is expected in mid-June on the matter, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown favouring a 42-day period.<\/p>\n<p>He has said the change was needed to accommodate questioning after any &#8220;substantial terrorist incident&#8221; on British soil.<\/p>\n<p>He has argued that this extension was backed by Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London and the most senior policeman in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>But Conservative leader David Cameron has accused Mr Brown of trying to push through the extension to appear &#8220;tough on terror&#8221;, rather than because he believes in it.<\/p>\n<p>Last week Mr Cameron claimed he had been sent a report which detailed the concerns of some Labour MPs on the issue, and suggested there might be a backbench rebellion when the vote was held.<\/p>\n<p>The Liberal Democrats also oppose extending the 28 day limit. Enough Labour MPs appear to oppose the extension to suggest the government could be defeated.<!-- E BO --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC News | MPs should work together to agree a detention limit for terror suspects and ensure the matter is not a political football, a former MI5 chief has said. Ministers want to be able to hold suspects without charge for 42 days, rather than the current 28-days. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and many Labour [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1615,16],"tags":[55],"class_list":{"0":"post-3420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uk-news","7":"category-war-terrorism","8":"tag-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}