Call for counter-terrorism minister after Scots student is arrested

Published on 14/04/2006 12:07

A FORMER Home Office minister has called for an MP to be put in charge of counter-terrorism.

John Denham, the Commons home affairs select committee chairman, said a single minister should bring together all the policing and intelligence issues.

He was speaking a day after Mohammed Atif Siddique, 20, was arrested in Alva, Clackmannanshire. Sixty police officers raided his home after a four-month MI5 and Special Branch surveillance operation. A neighbour said Siddique "seemed to become more radical after 9/11".

Residents in Alva admitted they were shocked when Siddique was arrested under the Anti-Terrorism Act 2000.

Victoria Banks, daughter of local MP Gordon Banks, said: "The family are the nicest people you could ever meet."

After his arrest Siddique was taken to the national holding centre at Govan in Glasgow - the most secure police station in Scotland.

The suspect's parents Mohammed and Parveen, brother Kashif, 23, and sister Ayesha, 17, were also taken away in separate police cars to be interviewed.

Siddique is a computing student who had been studying at a college in Glasgow. The family's solicitor, Aamer Anwar, said: "He's a peaceful individual who is not involved in any groups.

"He's a young man who has a beard. Thousands of young men in Glasgow have beards for religious reasons. That does not make them terrorists."