LONDON, March 11 -- A British judge released eight terrorism suspects from prison on Friday -- including an Islamic preacher accused of helping inspire last year's train bombings in Madrid -- while Parliament broke a deadlock after a marathon all-nighter and passed the government's proposed new anti-terror law.
The suspects, foreign citizens who had been held without charge or trial for as long as 3 1/2 years, were freed by a special immigration appeals judge. But he imposed restrictions that include night-time curfews, electronic tagging, regular searches of their homes and a ban on the use of cell phones and computers.
While no list of names was issued, officials confirmed that one of those released was Abu Qatada, 44, a Jordanian citizen whom Spanish authorities have sought to question about his alleged association with four men accused of involvement in the Madrid blasts, which killed 191 people exactly one year ago.
Qatada, whom a previous appeals court had labeled "a truly dangerous individual . . . at the center in the U.K. of terrorist activities associated with al Qaeda," had been held since October 2002.
Two police vans carrying many of the released suspects pulled out of Belmarsh prison in southeast London just after noon on Friday, and two others were freed from a maximum-security hospital ward where they had been treated for physical and psychiatric problems. Another detainee had been freed Thursday evening.
All were taken to undisclosed locations, and reporters were not allowed to see or talk to any of them.
Civil liberties advocates, who had branded the men's continued imprisonment "Britain's Guantanamo," a reference to the U.S. naval prison in Cuba, welcomed the release. But police officials, including the current and former heads of Scotland Yard, said the men remained a security threat and would have to be closely monitored.
The releases followed a ruling by a panel of British justices in December that the government's emergency powers, used to hold the men without trial, violated human rights and were discriminatory because they applied only to foreigners. Parliament had enacted the emergency powers in the fall of 2001 in response to the terror attacks in the United States.
The move came as Prime Minister Tony Blair's government finally reached a compromise with opponents that allowed both sides to claim victory and pass a new anti-terror act to replace the one the justices had condemned.
The resolution ended a three-day stalemate between the House of Commons, where Blair's ruling Labor Party has a solid majority, and the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber where his party wields far less influence .
The new bill, which was considerably diluted during the past week, would allow judges to impose broad restrictions on terrorism suspects without imprisoning them. The opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties had used the House of Lords to block the bill by offering a series of amendments there to progressively water it down.
Each time the Lords approved the amendments, the bill returned to the Commons, where Blair's supporters defeated the new proposals. The game of parliamentary Ping Pong went on for four rounds and produced a record 30-hour session of the Lords -- the longest since 1986. Cots and air mattresses filled back rooms of the elegant Palace of Westminster where Parliament meets, but members of the Lords, who tend to be considerably older than their Commons counterparts, maintained their stamina and political nerve.
The remaining sticking points Friday were the Lords' insistence that a higher level of evidence be required for a judge to act against a suspect and that the bill expire automatically in one year.
The resolution came Friday afternoon when Blair agreed to present a new act next year, provided his government is returned to office in elections expected to take place in May. Both Blair and his main rival, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard, insisted they had not backed down, and each took a last potshot at the other.
A visibly angry Blair accused Howard and the Conservatives of "playing daft games, frankly, with the nation's security." He told reporters that the sunset clause his opponents had wanted "would send a signal of weakness at the very time we should send a signal of strength" to potential terrorists.
But Howard said it was Blair who had engaged in political games. "Everyone agrees that terrorism is a real threat to our country -- the point of difference has always been how we most effectively tackle it," the Conservative leader told reporters. "If only he'd been less arrogant, these sensible changes could have been agreed to in a quicker and more dignified manner."
