News that a failed asylum seeker was allowed to remain in Britain and plot an al-Qaeda terrorist attack pushes Labour's manifesto launch off the front pages of many of today's papers.

The Algerian man, who stabbed a policeman to death and planned poison attacks in Britain, was jailed yesterday for 17 years after being told by the judge that he was part of a terrorist operation to "destabilise society".

However, his eight co-defendants were cleared and a second conspiracy trial abandoned.

The defence solicitor Gareth Peirce, who represented three of those acquitted, said the cleared men, who have been held in Belmarsh prison for more than two years, were the victims of a "massive conspiracy tapestry woven by the prosecution".

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, expressed his satisfaction with the verdict. "What the case showed was that there are terrorist organisations which seek to challenge us in this country and challenge our basic freedom," he said.

He denied that the collapse of a second trial and the acquittal of eight of the nine accused was an embarrassment.

"We will obviously keep a very close eye on the eight men being freed today, and consider exactly what to do in the light of this decision," he said.

Tories

But David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said it demonstrated the flaws in Labour's immigration policy.

He said Bourgass should have been deported after his application for asylum was finally rejected in 2001.

"This officer was killed by someone who should have been deported when his asylum application failed.

"Unfortunately this failure was a direct consequence of the government's chaotic asylum policy and its porous borders.

But lawyers pointed out that he could not have been sent back to Algeria on the grounds that he could have faced torture or death there.