Home Secretary Charles Clarke defended the Government's response to the threat of terrorism against claims it represented a major assault on civil liberties.

Mr Clarke insisted that putting in place a legislative framework to combat terrorists intent on depriving innocent civilians of their right to life did not represent "a great cost to civil liberties".

Mr Clarke made his comments yesterday at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

The criticism followed protests during the first two days of the conference by campaigners calling for justice for Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Deghayes, from Saltdean, Brighton.

Mr Deghayes has been held without trial at the American military base in Cuba for more than three years.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, told the fringe meeting the Government had demonstrated a "voracious appetite for home affairs legislation".

She said: "The quantity of this legislation and the speed with which it seems to move down the conveyor belt, from soundbite announcement by the Prime Minister on the Frost programme to statute book, is turning that legislation into nothing more than the highest form of spin."

Ms Chakrabarti highlighted proposals to allow police to detain terrorist suspects for up to three months without charge.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005