Lord Carlile of Harrow, QC is fine fellow.  He is a good lawyer, and a creative politician. The former LibDem MP is now making himself very useful, in various public positions. In particular, he is the Government's Adjudicator under the provisions of Part IV of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime & Security Act 2001, monitoring the imprisonment without trial of asylum-seekers suspected of terrorism, imprisoned without rights, upon direction of the Home Secretary. And Lord Carlile has just published his first, convincing report, having inspected Belmarsh Prison in South London and Wood Hill, in Milton Keynes.

Carlile criticised sharply the conditions in which the thirteen men we kept - "Wartime detainees were kept in better conditions."   He recommended that they should be kept in a "separate, secure environment, with greater internal freedom of association and of activity".  He even suggested that it might be adequate for the men to be tagged electronically, thus allowing them the freedom of house arrest.  Their treatment by the prison staff was decidedly unsatisfactory.  "All thirteen men complained that they were treated in the same way as men convicted of the most serious crimes, indeed were locked up alongside such men.  Some complained of worse treatment, including the use of solitary confinement and restricted opportunities to contact family... All told me of the... difficulty of dealing with incarceration without trial, conviction, or any indication of when - if ever, - it would end".  If it were not verified, this tale of 2002 would not be easily believable.  Carlile reported that he had seen the file evidence on the basis of which they had been imprisoned, "and in every case I was entirely satisfied that the criteria were met, and I would have been very surprised if certification had not taken place."

Is that all right, then?   No it is not.  Just consider this catalogue, and the troubling question its poses -

1. How did senior professional prison officers, in two leading prisons, make such awful misjudgments about the detention conditions for these men?
2. How is that Ministers did not know what was being done in their name, until a "Prison Visitor" reported it to them?
3. Have these faults of detention and treatment been rectified?
4. Carlile carefully concludes that, given the statutory certification procedure, it was properly administered - but why should these men face indefinite detention, without trial?  Why should there not be charges, with some special trial process?  Many security cases require special covert procedures, which conceal full witness identity - why not these?  Does Carlile, having seen all the papers, think that the circumstances justify detention without trial?  You can be sure he was not asked.
5. What arcane mysteries of procedure and espionage lie behind this cruelty?  Are there really high secrets of State engaged which, if revealed under controlled circumstances to a trial judge, would shake the foundations of the State?

The Carlile Report, assiduous and worthy, leaves open as many questions as it answers.