Flag burning should be made a crime, says Yard chief

Flag burning should be made a crime, says Yard chief

By JASON LEWIS, Mail on Sunday Last updated at 21:34pm on 11th November 2006

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police chief

Britain's most senior police officer has called for a range of new anti-terror laws including making flag burning a criminal offence and allowing details from tapped telephone calls to be used as evidence in court.

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police chief, also wants legislation to allow officers to question terror suspects after they have been charged and 'a new look' at extending the already controversial 28-day period suspects can be held in police custody.

His demands came as a major new report, due to be published tomorrow, will claim 'grandstanding' statements on terrorism by Tony Blair and John Reid are alienating Muslims and making new attacks more likely.

In a controversial statement, just days before the Queen's Speech which is likely to contain the Government's latest anti-terror measures, the Met Commissioner spoke of a need for new legal approaches to tackle terrorism.

Referring to the arrest of suspects allegedly planning an attack on airliners over the Atlantic, he said: "One of the truly shocking things - in addition to their intent - is the apparent speed with which young, reasonably affluent, British-born people were converted from what appeared to be ordinary lives to a position where some were allegedly prepared to commit suicide and murder thousands of people at the same time."

Sir Ian, speaking at a summit on terrorism in Berlin, called for another look at an extension to the 28-day time limit that police can detain terror suspects. The Prime Minister's call for 90 days was rejected by Parliament earlier this year.

He added that there was also a need to 'introduce a procedure to question suspects after they have been charged with a terrorist offence, when new evidence emerges about that offence'. And he said 'the ban in Britain on the use as evidence in court of material obtained from telephone intercepts is not sustainable'.

Sir Ian also called for new laws on 'some forms of public protest, including a ban on the burning of flags or effigies and the covering of faces in any demonstration whatsoever'.

But his call for tougher measures comes as the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust publishes its highly critical report by two leading academics on the Government's anti-terrorist response.

The report by Professor Stuart Weir and Dr Andrew Blick is understood to criticise 'grandstanding' by the likes of the Prime Minister and Home Secretary John Reid.

It says that some of their statements and arguments are doing more harm than good.

And it attacks Labour for its disregard of human rights which, it says, alienates the Muslim community and creates more prospective terror plotters.