Clarke rejects fund for victims of the London attacks
By Raza Mumtaz - PakistanTimes.net Foreign Editor

LONDON (UK): British Home Secretary Charles Clarke on Monday rejected the idea of a fund that would provide better compensation for victims of the July-7 terror attacks in London.

"Whether you are stabbed outside a pub or maimed by an explosion on a Tube train, it's not actually the way in which you are injured that is the key thing, provided it's a criminal act, but the extent of the injuries," he told a newspaper.

The victims of the July-7 bombings of London subway trains and a bus, in which 56 people including four apparent suicide bombers died and around 700 people were wounded, receive compensation from a body that indemnifies all victims of crime in Britain.

Compensation

The maximum handed out is 500,000 pounds (735,000 euros) but compensation depends on the seriousness of wounds.

Relatives of a person who is killed receive 5,500 pounds (8,000 euros) each or 11,000 pounds if there is just one person involved, the Telegraph said.

The families of the London victims have been calling for a more generous fund to be set up covering terrorist attacks. Families of victims of the September-11, 2001 attacks in the United States each received two million dollars (1.6 million euros).

Clarke also said he was ready to compromise on two basic points of highly controversial anti-terrorist legislation currently being discussed in the House of Commons: holding of terrorism suspects for up to 90 days without charge, and the creation of a new crime of "glorifying" terrorism.●