A complaint saying UK intel agency GCHQ intercepted legal advice strictly privileged to be kept private has been lodged by lawyers representing two Libyan families. Their clients claim they were rendered to Gaddafi’s Libya by UK agents for torture.
Solicitors working with the human rights group Reprieve filed a
notice of complaint on behalf of two Libyan families who led
politically sensitive legal battles with the UK, the Guardian
reported Sunday. The lawyers claim that UK security agencies
prejudiced their clients’ cases by breaching their right to a
fair trial.
The document lists the UK security service, MI5, the Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6, the Government Communications
Headquarters, GCHQ, the UK Home Secretary and the UK Foreign
Secretary as respondents.
It states: “There is a strong likelihood that the respondents
have intercepted and are intercepting the applicants’ legally
privileged communications in respect of the [cases].”
The complaint has been lodged with the Investigatory Powers
Tribunal – UK’s most secret court that examines complaints about
the intelligence services and government use of covert
surveillance. Most of the tribunal’s hearings are held in
private, but the lawyers called for the case to be heard in open
court.
The claim points out that two of the clients, Abdel Belhaj and
Sami al-Saadi, were prominent leaders of the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group during the Libyan revolution, which makes them
“likely to be of interest” to UK intelligence agencies.
While al-Saadi and his family have already settled their claim
against the UK government for a payment of 2.2 million pounds,
Belhaj’s case is due to be heard shortly at the British High
Court of Justice to resolve the kidnap and torture allegations.
Both claim that they were kidnapped and forcibly flown back with
their wives and children from China to Libya as a result of joint
MI6, CIA and Libyan operations in 2004. After Colonel Gaddafi was
toppled, an MI6 fax supporting the rendition victims’ case was
revealed among documents recovered from Gaddafi government
offices.
The fax was sent from MI6’s Sir Mark Allen to Gaddafi’s Foreign
Minister Moussa Koussa. Allen congratulated Koussa on receiving
Belhaj, who was then known as Abu Abdallah Assadaq, saying that
“this was the least we could do for you and for Libya to
demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built up over
recent years.”
The UK Foreign Office has not so far conceded any liability for
the renditions of the Libyans.
A statement by Reprieve’s strategic director, Cori Crider,
published on the human rights group’s website Monday, said:
“It is bad enough that UK security services helped kidnap and
render young children and a pregnant woman into the hands of
Colonel Gaddafi. To add insult to injury, they are now trying to
undermine their right to a fair trial by spying on private
communications with their lawyers.”
“UK complicity in Gaddafi’s torture of his opponents is a
shameful incident that needs to be opened up to public scrutiny –
not subject to more skullduggery from GCHQ,” Crider said.
According to the Law Society, which represents solicitors in
England and Wales, clients have an “absolute, fundamental
human right” to be candid with their legal advisers and not
have their communications disclosed. This “cannot be
overridden by any other interest,” the society’s rules say.
The only basis for legal exemption that could possible enable a
UK agency to intercept emails would be the prevention of crime,
the lawyers stated in their complaint, adding that such
consideration could not be relevant in the context of their
clients’ cases.
The complaint has emerged in the footsteps of revelations on the
GCHQ’s extensive monitoring Tempora program, which were leaked by
the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and published by
Guardian.
GCHQ’s alleged capability to tap directly into fiber optic cables
carrying the bulk of online exchanges that transit the UK has
been directly cited by the lawyers as the evidence supporting the
complaint.
The “full range of electronic communications” obtained by
GCHQ through Tempora is said to be routinely stored for three to
thirty days, but the communications could reportedly be held for
longer if “deemed to be of interest.”
Snowden’s leaks have already triggered the Law Society to
consider issuing new guidance to British solicitors, amid growing
concern that the government’s mass online surveillance operations
are undermining the ability of their clients to take legal cases
against the state. Several UK law firms are reportedly reviewing
the way they communicate with clients.