Britain releases 12 men arrested in anti-terrorism sweep

LONDON —  In an embarrassment for the British government, all 12 men arrested during a high-profile counter-terrorism sweep two weeks ago have been released, despite warnings at the time that a “very big” attack was imminent, authorities said Wednesday.

Officials are seeking to deport 11 of the men to their native Pakistan.

But none of the former suspects has been charged with any wrongdoing, and authorities conceded that there was not enough evidence to continue holding them in custody. One of the 12 was freed several days after being arrested.

The release of all the suspects was an embarrassing turn of events for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who had called the April 8 arrests across northwestern England a necessary step to foil a “very big terrorist plot” that police had been following “for some time.”

Rumors spread afterward that those arrested were members of Al Qaeda who planned to bomb a shopping center or nightclub in the city of Manchester.

And because most of the men were Pakistani nationals in Britain on student visas, a media outcry ensued over the possibility that would-be terrorists were successfully avoiding scrutiny by border-control agents by posing as students.

But searches of the suspects’ homes and computers apparently failed to produce any actionable evidence, and authorities scrambled Wednesday to answer accusations that the hurried arrests subjected the men to needless stress and humiliation.

“Our clients were arrested in a blaze of publicity and speculation,” Mohammed Ayub, a lawyer for three of the men, said. “Their arrest and detention has been a very serious breach of their human rights.”

Ayub added that his clients, all in their 20s, “have no criminal history. They were here lawfully on student visas, and all were pursuing their studies and working part time. Our clients are neither extremists nor terrorists.”

Officials did not elaborate on plans to seek deportation for 11 of the men, other than to cite grounds of national security.

The police sweep that resulted in the arrests was itself born of a major security blunder.

On the morning of April 8, Bob Quick, then the head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard, was photographed carrying top-secret documents about an investigation of a suspected Al Qaeda plot. The contents of the top sheet were clearly visible, and the photographs were soon posted on the Web.

Because of the breach in security, police said they were forced to mount their sweep hours earlier than planned. Quick resigned the following day.

It is an open question whether waiting a few more hours would have yielded any more evidence.

Peter Fahy, chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, defended the large-scale operation, which involved hundreds of officers. The raids took place in daylight, including one at a university in Liverpool that terrified students as armed police held a suspect, sprawled on the ground, outside the campus library.

“We had a duty to act . . . to protect the public and a subsequent duty to investigate what lay before us,” Fahy said Wednesday.

“We don’t take these decisions lightly and only carry out this kind of action if it was wholly justified.”

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henry.chu@latimes.com