LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Nick Aldworth has been listening with us. He's a former detective chief superintendent and a U.K. national coordinator for counterterrorism policing. And he's here to share his insights. Good morning, and welcome to the program.
NICK ALDWORTH: Good morning.
FADEL: OK. So a lot we don't know and a lot of speculation going on. These five men have been released on bail. Given your experience, does it tell you anything about what kind of crime they might be suspected of?
ALDWORTH: Well, we're fishing from a big pond of speculation here. And I think that's the first thing that we all have to be very, very careful of, particularly if we then try and make definitive statements about what's happening. But one of the things that being released on bail can tell me is that these are matters that are being investigated, are not likely to present any ongoing risk of harm to the public at large. And generally speaking, people in the U.K. are granted bail for a number of reasons.
Or even let's look at it the other way. Bail is withheld for a number of reasons. And those reasons would be if they're not likely to return back to custody, if they're likely to continue offending, they're likely to cause harm to victims or witnesses or possibly, you know, come under harm to themselves, or if they present a risk to the public. If any of those things apply, then normally speaking, people won't be granted bail. So I think we can make a good assumption that these people have been released and there isn't an ongoing threat to the people around RAF Fairford or anywhere else, for that matter.
FADEL: Now, we heard our correspondent describe President Trump's reaction, surprise, saying he wouldn't have released them. And what do you make of that reaction?
ALDWORTH: Well, I've been a custody officer myself in my younger service days. And I'd have welcomed President Trump's assistance in making my bailing decisions. I think the thing that the American public may not appreciate is that our custody processes are governed by statute. And within the middle of that, we have a largely independent role of a police sergeant, who makes the decisions around ongoing custody. And that person has to, by law, be independent of the investigation.
So decisions here are very, very objective. There's not a lot of subjectivity around it. There's not a lot of political influence able to be exerted on anything that happens here. But what I think we need to be careful of, though, is just to presume that you can't have something, you know, of a non-malevolent nature taking place coincidentally at the same time as we may well be having a joint international investigation.
FADEL: Now, again, we still don't really know what these men were doing or are suspected of exactly. But President Trump says the U.S. and the U.K. worked together to arrest the suspects and that those suspects intended to, quote, "do big damage" to the airbase. I mean, would the U.S. and the U.K. be operating off the same information here?
ALDWORTH: So it's unlikely that we would bring U.S. authorities into an ongoing, dynamic operation where perhaps we are surveilling somebody live time. What we definitely do is, you know, America is still our most important intelligence ally and probably vice versa. Of the something in the region of 800 ongoing investigations that we typically have going on at any one time in the U.K. involving counterterrorism policing and intelligence services, a number of those will have an international component to them. And we do have a great working relationship with your FBI, your CIA and vice versa - you with our MI5, our MI6, our government security communications headquarters, as well as counterterrorism policing. So it is highly possible - I'm not saying probable - highly possible that there are ongoing investigations which have an element that, you know, the U.S. will have an ongoing interest in.
FADEL: I guess what I'm asking is, why is the U.S. getting out ahead of the U.K. here? I mean, why is the president of the United States talking about the big damage and what these men might've done...
ALDWORTH: Yeah.
FADEL: ...When the U.K. is not sharing this information and asking people not to speculate?
ALDWORTH: Well, dare I say that our government ministers tend to operate a little bit more discreetly in what they say publicly than possibly we see from elsewhere. I think it's unhelpful, particularly for leaders, to speculate about what's going on. And, you know, the risk of doing so is that you end up perhaps calling it wrong. I would be very surprised if your president, being able to make such a definitive statement, and the outcome that we're seeing in the U.K. are relating to the same events.
FADEL: Nick Aldworth, formerly the U.K.'s national coordinator for counterterrorism policing. Thank you so much for your time and your insights.
ALDWORTH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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