Bearded maniacs deserve justice, too

I’d like, this week, to draw your attention to the United Kingdom’s unjust treatment of some bearded maniacs. I realise, in writing this, that bearded maniacs may not be near the top of your list of stuff to worry about at the moment, or perhaps ever. Indeed it may even be the case that you think the world is an unjust place per se and that you would be very happy if its most egregious injustices were directed largely towards bearded maniacs, rather than the rest of us. In which case what follows may annoy you, for which apologies.

Bearded Maniac No. 1 (BM1) is the ‘radical Muslim cleric’ Abu Qatada, who has just won his appeal against deportation from this country at the European Court of Human Rights. We wished to send him to Jordan, where evidence obtained through torture would be used to incarcerate him for the rest of his life and quite probably he would be tortured himself.