"Being under a control order is worse than being in prison. I used to feel that I was being followed wherever I went. They play with your mind...Sometimes I sit on my bed and in my mind I can see the door being broken down in front of me…"

Mouloud Sihali was one of eight men arrested over the Ricin plot in September 2002. After spending over two years in HMP Belmarsh, a jury acquitted him in April . He was re-arrested a few months later, before being cleared once again. Mouloud spent 16 months under strict control orders before being cleared in May 2007. In this exclusive interview with al-istiqamah.com, Mouloud gives a 1st-hand account of the psychological effects induced by control orders.

Al-Istiqamah: Assalaamu Alaykum.

Mouloud: Wa alaikum salaam.

Al-Istiqamah: Mouloud, you were first arrested in September 2002. What were you initially arrested for?

Mouloud: I was charged with Section 57 which is having items in my possession that might be useful for the instigation or preparation of an act of terrorism.

Al-Istiqamah: Was that a …passport?

Mouloud: Er… Yes. [Laughs] It’s pretty much anything. They have created this charge, which is a standard charge for anything that could be found in a suspect’s place. They do that to get maximum custody limit of up to six months, so anybody who is arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act is automatically charged under that section. That’s one thing they don’t need an extension for holding suspects beyond 45 days, when they can do it lawfully by charging people with this.

Al-Istiqamah: So you learnt of this “Ricin plot” whilst incarcerated at Belmarsh prison?

Mouloud: Well, it’s a long story, how I was linked to this Ricin plot is from one guy called Meguerba. He was arrested a day before me in September 2002 and he led them to us.

Al-Istiqamah: He fled the country after being granted bail, didn’t he?

Mouloud: Exactly, and when he fled to Algeria he was arrested by the DRS (Algeria's security police). He said that he was tortured. I don’t have any proof of that, but some people have reportedly seen him with a dislocated shoulder, a broken tooth. He then gave them information that there is Ricin factory in Wood Green and people are prepared to launch the poison across England. In Algeria, you have a lot of exaggeration. There are quite a few Algerians who happen to be part of the opposition party in Algeria and they want them behind bars….

Al-Istiqamah: Political activists?

Mouloud: Yes. So they start linking them all together to a plot, although none of these people knew each other. And that’s like with us, the Ricin accused. We didn’t know each other; we had never met each other before.

Al-Istiqamah: You were arrested in Ilford (east London)?

Mouloud: Yes. Some of us were from north London, from east London, even from Manchester, Birmingham. Everywhere. Yet somehow we were all linked together in the Ricin case. We were supposed to be the test case; the first Muslims ever to be charged with terrorism. So they wanted to set it as a precedent for different cases. They couldn’t afford to lose it. They had to secure a conviction. That’s why it was pushed up by politicians.

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