LONDON (AFP) - Britain is considering a raft of sweeping new anti-terrorism laws including special courts to try terror suspects without a jury, Home Secretary David Blunkett said in an interview.
Other measures, to be introduced only if Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government wins a general election expected in mid-2005, would include allowing evidence gained from telephone tapping to be used in trials.
Also, Blunkett said, people who had not committed an offence but were suspected of planning terrorism acts could have their actions restricted by so-called "civil orders", similar to a system of anti-social behaviour orders introduced recently to target repeat criminals.
The proposals will most likely alarm civil liberties campaigners in Britain, some of whom view Blunett as an authoritarian more concerned with pleasing right-wing tabloid newspapers than preserving individual freedoms.
Blunkett, interviewed by the ITV terrestrial television channel for a Sunday programme, said special terrorism trials with judges sitting alone were also being considered.
There was "a very strong case" for copying similar no-jury tribunals used to hear some immigration cases, "and there's widespread support for looking at that", Blunkett said.
The civil orders would be used to prevent people, for example, using certain banking systems linked to terrorism or using the Internet, with those breaching such orders being imprisoned.
However, this would all have to wait, Blunkett said: "It's not my intention to try and push a bill through this side of the general election whenever the prime minister calls it."
Information gained through wire taps could also become permitted as evidence in trials, Blunkett added, following discussions with security agencies.
The security services have previously opposed such a move, fearing that they could be force to disclose secret operations in court.
Blunkett's comments will cement the sometimes abrasive interior minister's reputation as someone unafraid to shock what he once dismissively labelled the "bleeding heart liberals" of the civil rights lobby.
Blunkett has coped successfully with the major handicap of blindness to rise through Labour Party ranks, and has become one of Blair's most trusted ministers.
He has battled with rights groups previously over issues such as a law allowing foreign terrorism suspects to be detained indefinitely without trial.
Britain, as a close ally of the United States both in Iraq and the "war on terrorism", is bracing itself for possible attack by groups such as Al-Qaeda, with the country's top policeman saying earlier this year that it was more a matter of when, rather than if.
11/21/2004 - 07:21 GMT - AFP