Free Rachid Ramda
- by: Eleanor Boyd
- recipient: Anthony Blair, Prime Minister, UK
We ask for the immediate release of Rachid Ramda, an Algerian asylum seeker held for ten years in UK prisons without charge or trial.
- We ask for the release of Rachid Ramda on the following grounds:
- He has been incarcerated without charge or trial for ten years in the UK which is supposed to be a democratic country that respects human rights. At present there is a great argument going on over the raising of the possible detention of a 'terrorist' suspect from 14 to 90 days. Yet this young man has lost ten years of his life without recourse to the British justice system, because of Home Office decree.
- The only 'evidence' against Rachid originated from a co-defendant who was brutally mistreated by the French authorities. This man later retracted his statement and has always denied the crime. Therefore, this 'evidence' is highly unreliable and misleading and cannot be used in a fair trial.
- The case to extradite him was quashed in June 2002, but the judge left the Home Office with a number of questions. It has taken three years for the Home Office to write 8 pages which contain no answers to these questions. No new 'evidence' has been submitted.
- Rachid is a political prisoner and the UK should have no political prisoners and still claim to be a civilised, democratic society.
- To extradite him to France on the above evidence would be a denial of his human rights and a travesty of justice.
