Clarke: Tough line

Families of suspected terrorists could be treated as possible suspects themselves, the home secretary has said.

Despite criticism that he is building a "police state", Charles Clarke has announced that the friends and relatives of the four British citizens freed from Guantanamo Bay this week could face sanctions.

He revealed that they may also undergo sweeping monitoring by the police in order to stop them being used in a possible terror plot.

Interviewed in the Telegraph, the home secretary said that those sharing an address with any of the four could be denied access to the telephone or internet and have to undergo body searches.

The home secretary insisted the measures were essential given that the UK is "in a state of emergency".

He said that "protecting national security must come first" - even if that meant infringing the freedom of families of terror suspects.

Tough approach

Clarke said: "I accept that an individual is different to a family, but where there is an individual deemed to be a threat on security grounds we need the powers to stop that person engaging in terrorism.

"Just because somebody's wife wants to chat with her friends about going shopping that's not therefore a reason to let somebody cause a bomb explosion at Bluewater [shopping centre]."

The home secretary insisted he was "not seeking to attack the innocent". "I'm seeking to make [the control orders] work for the others," he added.

Meanwhile nine terrorist suspects being held without charge in British jails may also be freed shortly but will be under house-arrest conditions.

Lawyers representing the nine will be in court on Monday to seek their release.

Meanwhile, George Churchill-Coleman, who was in charge of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has warned that Clarke is turning Britain into a "police state".

Clarke, however, defended the government's tough line.

"There are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society," he said.