Human rights group Liberty yesterday called on Home Secretary Reid to explain a ‘flawed’ secret intelligence scandal to Parliament.
Liberty said: ‘A security-cleared judgement released by the Special Immigrations Appeals Commission (SIAC) reveals not only that secret government intelligence in a terror case was flawed, but that this was discovered by chance.’
The May judgement has only just been released after several months of it being ‘redacted’ (rearranged).
In his judgement, Mr Justice Newman said the ‘administration of justice is put at risk’ if such failures occur.
Liberty added: ‘While acting on behalf of two suspects before SIAC, Special Advocate Andrew Nicol QC found that intelligence used as key evidence in one case was contradicted by the other.
‘In the new judgement, SIAC finds that “there has been fault on the party of the Secretary of State,” and that failures by Home Office lawyers put the very administration of justice at risk.’
Liberty is calling on the Home Secretary to ‘clarify the intelligence scandal before Parliament and for the Privy Council to urgently review the use of secret intelligence in SIAC cases’.
Director of Liberty Shami Chakrabarti said: ‘Our worst fear has been realised when the government submits flawed secret intelligence to a commission which will determine if people are to be returned to countries where they may face torture.
‘The Home Secretary has a duty to explain why the commission was misled and how this can possibly be prevented under these shadowy arrangements in the future.’
The defendant MK had French/Algerian citizenship and had appealed against being deported on national security grounds.
One of the allegations made against him was that he had allowed his passport to be used by Algerian Abu Doha, who is alleged to have links with Al-Qaeda.
MK’s appeal was turned down by SIAC and he agreed to be returned ‘voluntarily’ to Paris.
Liberty warned that ‘flawed secret intelligence is completely possible in the cases of 16 other Algerian nationals who face deportation’.
In its ‘redacted’ judgement the Special Immigration Appeals Commission says the passport allegation against MK ‘has been withdrawn, but that withdrawal came only as a result of the Special Advocates’ intervention, when their attention to the Abu Doha closed material revealed the existence of relevant documents.’
‘Had the coincidence of the Special Advocates’ instruction in both cases not occurred, the Commission would have been left to determine the question whether Abu Doha used the appellant’s passport, on a false basis.’
The ‘redacted’ judgement also suggests that in preparation for the Abu Doha hearing, Home Secretary Reid and Home Office lawyers attempted to conceal the false intelligence used in the MK case.
The judgement states: ‘There has been fault on the part of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Ian Burnett QC represented the Secretary of State at the hearing convened by the Commission when the Abu Doha material was first discovered.
‘As a result of the Special Advocates’ intervention, the Secretary of State’s legal team carried out a trawl of the Abu Doha material and submitted a supplementary bundle, but the documents enclosed with the letter of 24th April 2006 were not picked up by that exercise.
‘It is not appropriate to respond to that failure by contending, as Mr Wilken has done in his letter dated 25th April 2006, that since the issue as to the passport was no longer live, further disclosure was not required.
‘The Commission should have been made aware of the full extent of the failure to disclose. Mr Burnett’s assurance has, within weeks, been undermined.’