Powell defends UK police Fairford bail decision as operational matter
Five British nationals arrested over a suspected terrorist plot at RAF Fairford were released on bail yesterday, a decision that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump have expressed concern and surprise about.
Rubio has suggested the plot involved the hand of a foreign actor. The five men were arrested near the Gloucestershire airbase.
Labour Deputy Leader Lucy Powell defended the release as an operational decision for the police. Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, she told Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge: “Bail and those kind of decisions are operational decisions for the police and they are not taken by ministers, and nor should they ever be. And I am very grateful and I trust our police and the judgments that they come to.”
Powell declined to provide further details about the investigation, which she described as a live police investigation.