Suspected Terrorists

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 11

Suspected Terrorists

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, Oct. 20. Britain maintains that about 110 people detained in Aden are being held because they are suspected terrorists and not because of their political ' opinions, it was disclosed yesterday.

This was put forward by Mr Walter Padley, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, as a main reason for Britain refusing an official of Amnesty International access to the detainee camp in Aden. Mr Padley said this in an

exchange of letters with Amnesty International—which looks after the interests of political prisoners—last June and July which were oublished by the British Foreign Office yesterday. Mr Padley said: “A visit by a representative of the (Amnesty) organisation to the detention centre in Aden might well be taken to carry the implication that there are ‘political’ prisoners among the detainees there, and this we could not accept. “None of the persons at present detained in Aden is held because of his political opinions.” He recalled that investigations into conditions of the detainees had already been

made by a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He said this should be “a sufficient assurance to the world at large that there is nothing in the conditions under which the detainees are held that we need to be ashamed of.”

Mr Padley said the proper interest of Amnesty International was not to inspect the conditions in which the detainees were held but to establish for what reasons they were detained.

Mr Padley also stated that he naturally deplored the situation which made it necessary to detain these people at all.

“The remedy lies with those interests outside Aden which are responsible for making use of the senseless weapon of terrorism to further their own aims,” he said. The South Arabian Federation, which includes Aden, borders the Yemen. Britain has already announced it will give the federation independence by | 1968. British Ministers have alleged that some of the terrorist activity in the South Arabian Federation has been inspired from the United Arab Republic. But these allegations have been strongly denied by the Egyptians.