TWELVE foreign terrorist suspects are to be freed from top-security prisons but kept under virtual house arrest, Charles Clarke will announce today.

The Times has learnt that the Home Secretary will say today that the dozen men detained without trial in Belmarsh and Woodhill jails are to be released and kept under permanent surveillance while agreements are negotiated with their home countries to deport them. Those to be released include suspected Islamic extremists, many of whom are wanted in their home countries for alleged involvement in terrorism.

Mr Clarke’s statement follows the arrival in London last night of four British men who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay internment camp. They were immediately arrested by officers from the AntiTerrorist Branch. Gareth Peirce, the lawyer for one of the men said: “They are very marked by three years of ill-treatment and torture.

Mr Clarke will tell MPs that there is little choice but to release the detainees after a law lords’ ruling that indefinitely detaining the men was discriminatory and against the Human Rights Act. He will make plain, however, that he has a duty to maintain the security of the country and that the men must be constantly watched. There will be similar treatment in future for suspects against whom it has been found impossible to bring prosecutions. A senior source said: “This has not been easy and it is fraught with legal problems.” The men could be electronically tagged and let out as early as today.

The Home Secretary will also promise legislation to make it easier to bring suspects to book but The Times has learnt that the Cabinet has rejected allowing telephone tap evidence to be made admissible in terrorist cases. After a debate lasting several months, ministers have heeded the concerns of some in the security services that their own sources could be put at risk by such a move.

Mr Clarke will confirm, as The Times reported last week, that he wants to deport more suspects back to their own countries, including the 12 held at Belmarsh, in southeast London, and Woodhill prison, Milton Keynes, who are now to be allowed out.

Those involved in the case on which the Lords ruled come from Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan and Mr Clarke will report on efforts to reach new “memorandums of understanding” with those and other countries to give assurances to Britain that if the men are sent back they will not face the death penalty or be tortured.

Allowing suspects out of prison if there is no prosecution but keeping them under the tightest scrutiny was one of the options proposed in late 2003 by a committee of Privy Counsellors that voiced worries over the 2001 Act. It was unclear last night, however, whether Mr Clarke’s proposal would meet the law lords’ concerns. Releasing the men but keeping them under a form of house arrest would still appear to be discriminatory and would in effect be a form of detention without trial unless the men were charged with an offence.

The proposed legislation will respond to the law lords by atempting to make prosecution more effective, possibly by introducing offences called “acts preparatory to terrorism”.

The Interception of Communications Act 1985 specifically forbade the use in court of evidence gathered by tapping public phones. A review of antiterrorism legislation carried out by Lord Lloyd of Berwick in 1996 recommended a change and was backed by MI5, the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Unionist politicians. Years of Whitehall infighting ensued and nothing happened.

The law lords’ ruling found that Britain was in breach of the Human Rights Act because holding foreign residents indefinitely was discriminatory. Mr Clarke told The Times last week that while greater use of deportations might help the immediate situation it was not the answer to dealing with the judgment.

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