The Government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has expressed that police should not automatically question Muslim terror suspects on their religion straight away.
Max Hill QC said police should analyse and review the how closely terror suspects were questioned about their faith amid investigation into the Westminster attack in 2017.
The report by Max Hill QC about how police used Operation Classific, terrorism powers during the investigation and found that none of the terror suspects were arrested on the grounds of their religion or ethnicity. However some suspects were questioned about their religion due to Khalid Masood, the man responsible for the Westminster attack, and his extremist support for Isil.
Hill stated that there would be “understandable concern” over questions about faith and that Masood's extremist views and support for Isil provided “a justification for the religious context of some of the questions posed in interviews during Operation Classific”.
He said, “However, every interview is case specific and it does not follow that it would be appropriate to ask very detailed religious questions in every case where a Muslim has been arrested on suspicion of terrorism-related activity. I therefore recommend, in the interest of clarity, that the police take this opportunity to review training on the circumstances and extent to which such questions will be necessary in future interviews. I accept, however, that questioning detainees about religion or any other matter occurs with careful thought and planning.”
