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| Met chief warns over terror plots | Met chief warns over terror plots |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| The number of terror plots in the UK is "mounting", Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has told MPs. | |
| The number of conspirators involved and the "magnitude" of their ambitions is also growing, added Sir Ian. | The number of conspirators involved and the "magnitude" of their ambitions is also growing, added Sir Ian. |
| He was making the case for extending the 28-day limit for detaining terror suspects without charge. | |
| He told the home affairs committee internment was a bad idea - but 50 to 90 day detention would be "sensible" if there was judicial oversight. | |
| 'Real prospect' | |
| Sir Ian conceded that there have been no cases so far where detention beyond 28 days had been needed but he said it was only a matter of time. | |
| "The prospect that we will need more than 28 days some time in the not too distant future is so real a prospect that Parliament needs to consider it," Sir Ian told MPs. | |
| The Metropolitan Police chief conceded that extending detention beyond 28 days would not "ease" relations between police and the Muslim community. | |
| But he said more effort should be made to explain to the Muslim community why the police believed it was needed. | |
| "The number of the conspiracies, the number of conspirators within those conspiracies and the magnitude of the ambition, in terms of destruction and loss of life, is mounting, has continued to mount year by year, and a pragmatic inference can be drawn that at some stage 28 days is not going to be sufficient," Sir Ian told MPs. |