A CONSERVATIVE activist has fuelled mistrust of the police in Muslim communities by making false statements on the detention of terror suspects.

Sayeeda Warsi, a rising star of David Cameron’s party, said that almost 900 “innocent people” had been “locked up for 14 days” under anti-terrorism laws. In reality, 36 terror suspects have been detained for more than seven days. Of the 10 who were freed without charge, none was held for 14 days.

Mrs Warsi, 34, the Conservative vice-chairman with responsibility for cities, asserted that the tightening of anti-terrorist legislation had turned Britain into “a police state”.

The claims appear in an article that she wrote for Awaaz, a newspaper read by Asians that is distributed in the West Yorkshire towns and cities that were home to the July 7 suicide bombers. Readers were told by Mrs Warsi that the Government’s anti-terror proposals were “enough to tip any normal young man into the realms of a radicalised fanatic”.

Her article asks: “If terrorism is the use of violence against civilians, then where does that leave us in Iraq?" It continues: “Let me give you some facts and figures. To date, 895 people have been arrested under the terror laws, 23 have been charged. So effectively 872 innocent people have been locked up for 14 days." Yet Home Office figures reveal that 296 of the 895 people arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 before September 2005 were charged, either under the Act or with offences including murder and the possession of firearms and explosives.

The maximum detention period was not extended from seven to 14 days until January 2004, since when only 36 of 357 arrested terror suspects have held for more than a week; 10 of the 36 were released without charge, of whom 8 were held for less than 10 days. The other 2 were held for 11 days and 13 days respectively.

Mrs Warsi’s article was published after Tory MPs had voted to support an extension, to 28 days, of the maximum detention period for terror suspects.

Mrs Warsi, a lawyer, appeared on Newsnight on BBC Two last week as one of Mr Cameron’s elite A-list of Tories chosen to fight safe or winnable seats.

A campaign leaflet issued last year when she stood for Dewsbury, and in which she is seen wearing a Western business suit, focused on mainstream Tory issues including Europe — “Sayeeda Warsi believes in putting Britain first”. In a second leaflet, in which she wears a shalwar kameez, her concerns are homosexuality, which Labour is accused of promoting, and the “illegal” war in Iraq, which she says “may lead to further military action in places such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran”.

Mrs Warsi says that both leaflets were sent to all homes in the constituency and that she did not tailor her views according to the audience. She told The Times: “I felt it was appropriate to have some leaflets dealing with certain issues and other leaflets dealing with other issues, but they all went to all the electorate.”

She had believed that her detention statistics were correct at the time she wrote the Awaaz article, she said, adding: “I don’t believe that I have to justify everything I write, line by line and word by word.

“It may offend people sometimes but I will speak from the heart and speak the truth. And if speaking the truth is upsetting community relations, then I hold my hands up to that."

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