DHS holds terror talks with UK Minister, then detains him

Interested in terror, check, politics, check, step over here sir...

By John Lettice • Get more from this author

Posted in Government, 29th October 2007 15:25 GMT

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The UK's first Muslim Minister has chalked up his second detention at the hands of the US Department of Homeland Security - with exquisite irony, at Dulles Airport in Washington DC on his way back from talks with, er, the DHS on tackling terrorism.

Shahid Malik, who was also recently identified as Britain's most expensive MP, was detained by DHS officials, and he and his hand luggage were searched. He reports that he and two others, both black Muslims, were taken aside for further questioning.

Malik was previously held by staff at JFK in New York, last year while returning from an event where he'd been a keynote speaker on defeating extremism. Then, he claims, he was subjected to an "abusive attitude" from DHS staff.

The DHS' terrorist detection systems do seem to have an unfortunate knack when it comes to impressing relevant British Parliamentarians. Three years ago it contrived to demonstrate the efficacy of no-fly lists, in a negative sort of way, to a delegation from the UK's Transport Committee, headed by chair Gwyneth Dunwoody. As the impressed Dunwoody commented on the regime at the time, "it's a sort of general level of arrogant incompetence." Malik is no doubt similarly onside in the war on terror. ®

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