A remarkable detail in the story of five jihadists arrested in an international plot that included the foiled attempt to bomb New York City subways last year:

One of the suspects was arrested in England on Wednesday, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
The suspect, Abid Naseer, has been in and out of British courts for over a year. An immigration tribunal found in May that he was an al Qaeda operative, but said he could not be deported to Pakistan because of the risk he would be tortured there.
He has never been charged in criminal court in Britain.

Indeed, it turns out this impotence is old news. From a May 18 Telegraph story about Naseer’s arrest as part of an al-Qaeda cell in Manchester:

The panel noted that “No open assurances were given by the Pakistani authorities” and as a result they could not find there was a “sufficient safeguard against prohibited ill-treatment of any of the appellants.”
The Special Immigration and Appeals Commission said it was satisfied Abid Naseer, the alleged ring-leader, was behind an “imminent” al-Qaeda backed plot but said he risked being tortured if he was returned to Pakistan.
The arrests had to be brought forward by 24 hours after Assistant Chief Constable Bob Quick, then Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, was photographed entering Downing Street with plans for the raids under his arm.
The men were never charged but the Home Office attempted to deport Naseer and nine others on national security grounds.
Eight of the ten men, who had all arrived in Britain on student visas, chose to return to Pakistan. The two remaining men, including Naseer, have now won their attempt to remain in Britain.
The Home Office said it was not planning to appeal but it is thought the men are likely to be placed under control orders on their release from prison at huge expense to the public purse.
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said: “We are disappointed that the court has ruled that Abid Naseer and Ahmad Faraz Khan should not be deported to Pakistan, which we were seeking on national security grounds.
“As the court agreed, they are a security risk to the UK. We are now taking all possible measures to ensure they do not engage in terrorist activity.”
The Special Immigration and Appeals Commission said it was “satisfied that Naseer was an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom and that…it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.”
Nevertheless, it said Pakistan had a “long and well-documented history of disappearances, illegal detention and of the torture and ill-treatment of those detained, usually to produce information, a confession or compliance.”

More and more, we find ourselves recalling Toynbee: “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”