Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, accused of murdering two soldiers, left at risk of unfair trial and execution in Iraq, European court finds

• Helen Pidd
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010 18.15 GMT
• Article history

 

The UK government was today condemned for violating the human rights of two Iraqis accused of murdering two captive British soldiers in 2003.

Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, Sunni Muslims and former officials of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, have been detained for almost seven years. They are currently being held in the Rusafa prison near Baghdad.

The European court of human rights in Strasbourg unanimously found the pair were "at real risk of being subjected to an unfair trial followed by execution by hanging" in Iraq.

The finding reversed a decision made at the UK's highest court.

Saadoon and Mufdhi are accused of two of the most brutal killings of British personnel during the war.

On 23 March 2003, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth and Sapper Luke Allsopp, both bomb disposal experts, were dragged from their vehicles during an ambush within days of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

They were taken to an intelligence base, shot and filmed as they lay dying surrounded by a baying mob. Their bodies were found in shallow graves a month later.

Saadoon, 57, and 59-year-old Mufdhi have been waging a long-running legal battle, arguing that the British army had been wrong to hand them over to the Iraqi authorities for trial in December 2008.

They claim the transfer put them at real risk of torture and death by hanging after the Iraqi national assembly reintroduced the death penalty in 2004.

The two were tried by an Iraqi court in 2009 and cleared of the charges, but remain in custody pending an appeal by the prosecutor.

The European court of human rights ruled that Saadoon and Mufdhi had been "subjected to mental suffering caused by the fear of execution amounting to inhuman treatment" and awarded them €40,000 (£36,330) jointly in costs.

The judgment said: "For the court, compliance with their obligations under article three of the convention [which prohibits torture and "inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"] requires the government to seek to put an end to the applicants' suffering as soon as possible, by taking all possible steps to obtain an assurance from the Iraqi authorities that they will not be subjected to the death penalty."

Following the judgement, Tessa Gregory, of Public Interest Lawyers, which represented Saadoon and Mufdhi, said: "We call upon the UK government, in light of the severe criticisms made by the European court, to now do everything within its power to protect our clients from the death penalty and to seek their release so that they can, at long last, be reunited with their families.

"This case has been pursued for political purposes, and it is now time for the government to act."

The armed forces minister, Bill Rammell, said: "We are carefully considering the court's verdict.

"On 31 December 2008, we transferred to the Iraqi authorities, to face trial for war crimes, two Iraqis suspected of involvement in the murder of two British soldiers.

"At this point, we had no legal power to detain the suspects, and the court of appeal had unanimously ruled that they did not fall within the jurisdiction of the European convention on human rights.

"We transferred them having received credible assurances from the Iraqi government that they would be treated humanely in custody and we know that this has been the case.

"We have acted throughout in the interests of justice and in the interests of the families of the two murdered soldiers. We should all welcome the due legal process that is now being followed."

Schneier: CCTVs don't make us safer

By Cory Doctorow at 5:12 AM February 26, 2010

Bruce Schneier has written an outstanding essay for CNN on why sticking CCTV cameras on every corner doesn't make us safer, and can make us less safe by opening us up to abuse, and by causing police resources to be misallocated. This is required reading for the twenty-first century. Bruce points out that where there's a specific threat in a specific place -- casinos worried about cheats, shops worried about shoplifters, parking garages worried about skulking muggers -- CCTVs have some use. But as a catch-all solution to crime, they just don't work well enough to justify their expense in resources and liberty.

Pervasive security cameras don't substantially reduce crime. This fact has been demonstrated repeatedly: in San Francisco, California, public housing; in a New York apartment complex; in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Washington; in study after study in both the U.S. and the U.K. Nor are they instrumental in solving many crimes after the fact.

There are exceptions, of course, and proponents of cameras can always cherry-pick examples to bolster their argument. These success stories are what convince us; our brains are wired to respond more strongly to anecdotes than to data. But the data are clear: CCTV cameras have minimal value in the fight against crime.

Although it's comforting to imagine vigilant police monitoring every camera, the truth is very different, for a variety of reasons: technological limitations of cameras, organizational limitations of police and the adaptive abilities of criminals. No one looks at most CCTV footage until well after a crime is committed. And when the police do look at the recordings, it's very common for them to be unable to identify suspects. Criminals don't often stare helpfully at the lens and -- unlike the Dubai assassins -- tend to wear sunglasses and hats. Cameras break far too often.

Spy cameras won't make us safer

The Government is bowing to religious pressure and amending the Children Schools and Families Bill today to allow faith schools to teach about contraception and homosexuality in their own way. The National Secular Society's Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood opposes the amendment on the following grounds:

1. There is a greater, not lesser, need for objective sex education, for example on contraception and homosexuality, for children of parents with faith backgrounds - especially Catholic and minority faith backgrounds. They are more likely to have neglected sex education altogether because of their religious dogma.

2. The amendment is an infringement of children's human rights as it is likely to deny them objective information necessary for their future wellbeing.

3. It is cruel and damaging to teach gay children - or children who may become gay - (as religious bodies frequently do) that homosexuality is an "objective disorder" and a "strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil.¹"

4. A major six-year study commissioned by the US Congress, released in 2007², has found that young people who took part in chastity programmes, much favoured by religious bodies, were just as likely to have sex as those who did not. Unfortunately those not receiving objective sex education are unlikely to take precautions, with devastating consequences for their future lives and those of their children.

5. Once more, the Government looks to be caving in to the demands of religious leaders and the result is that children are being betrayed, with potentially devastating effects on their future lives.

6. Many children of religious parents do not regard themselves as being religious and indeed many of the parents of children in these very many publicly funded religious schools are not of the faith of the school. They deserve better.

¹ Per a 1992 Vatican document

² http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s1899734.htm

Government persuaded Lord Neuberger to delete damning references to MI5 'culture' of suppressing evidence

Read the letter that reveals the draft ruling

• Ian Cobain
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 February 2010 11.54 GMT
• Article history

Binyam Mohamed, left, and foreign secretary David Miliband. Photograph: PA

The government launched a successful last-minute bid to persuade the court of appeal to erase the most damning details of MI5's complicity in torture from its decision in the Binyam Mohamed case – but has been unable to suppress a letter that details some of the contents of the original draft ruling.

On Monday, Jonathan Sumption QC wrote to the court warning it that the paragraph in question was "likely to receive more public attention that any other parts of the judgments".

This, Sumption pointed out, was because the paragraph would state that MI5 did not operate in a culture that respected human rights or renounced "coercive interrogation techniques".

The letter also reveals that the judgment, before being rewritten, said that this was particularly true of the MI5 officer known as Witness B who gave evidence in the case – and that this man's conduct was characteristic of MI5 as a whole.

Furthermore, the letter shows, the judges had originally ruled that MI5 officers had "deliberately misled" the Intelligence and Security Committee, the body of MPs and peers supposed to oversee its work, on the question of coercive interrogations, and that this "culture of suppression" reflected its dealings with the committee, the foreign secretary and the court.

Finally, the letter makes clear that the court ruled MI5's culture of suppression "penetrates the service to such a degree" that it undermines any government assurance based upon information that comes from MI5 itself.

The master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, told the court this morning that he had discussed Sumption's request with the lord chief justice, and decided to amend the relevant section "quite significantly". However it transpired that Sumption's letter had not been circulated to all the other parties. "I have received a number of letters from interested parties complaining about the way the amendment was made."

The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, wrote to the court after the Sumption letter came to light, as did Liberty.

Judges were entitled to change their draft judgments, the master of the rolls said, but "it was over-hasty of me" to do so without giving others the opportunity of making representations.

He would therefore give parties who wished to object until 4pm on Friday to make representations, when he would decide whether to reinstate his judgement.

The children's secretary wants an urgent decision on whether the law should be changed to close a loophole that allows children to be smacked by Sunday school teachers and private tutors

• Jessica Shepherd
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 January 2010 12.10 GMT
• Article history

Parents can still smack children legally, but should any teachers be allowed to? Photograph: Rex Features

The children's secretary, Ed Balls, has ordered an urgent inquiry into whether Sunday school teachers and private tutors should be allowed to smack their pupils.

A loophole in the law means that while teachers in state and private schools are banned from smacking children, their counterparts in faith schools are not.

Teachers who take pupils for fewer than 12.5 hours of lessons a week have the same status as someone who is standing in for a parent, and can therefore give a child a mild smack. They can plead the defence of "reasonable punishment".

Balls has demanded that the government's chief adviser on children's safety, Sir Roger Singleton, report to him within a week on whether the law should be changed.

The issue has been raised by Ann Cryer, a Labour MP, who wants the loophole closed.

In a letter to Singleton, Balls wrote that the government would like to "progress to a point where smacking is seen as unacceptable by the vast majority of parents, and is only used as a last resort, if at all".

But ministers would stop short of making smacking illegal because it would "criminalise decent parents who decide to administer a mild smack," he said.

Balls wrote: "We recognise that whilst it seems that fewer parents smack their children, most currently do not believe they should be banned from doing so by law. Our approach is to provide parents with support and guid ance to help them manage their children's behaviour more effectively.

"The defence of reasonable punishment may be available to those who teach in certain part-time educational and learning settings, for example religious instruction that children attend at the weekend. I am concerned to establish the key issues here and whether this is an area in which we need to consider a change, in the interests of strengthening safeguards for children."

But the schools minister, Vernon Coaker, said he feared a change in the law could create "unintended problems" such as stopping fathers from smacking children they care for, but for whom they do not have parental responsibility.

In his reply to Cryer in the House of Commons last week, Balls said: "The important point to make is that there is not one rule for a child in a madrassa and another for a child in any other circumstance.

"The use of physical punishment against any child is wrong; it is outside the law and is not fair to children.

"I do not think we should tolerate any use of physical punishment in any school or learning setting in which trusted adults are supposed to be looking after children, not abusing them."

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said: "The government needs to legislate to protect children – not leave an opt-out simply because it fears some ethnic or religious backlash."

Our new advisory committee is not a rival to the government's, but I believe that scientific advice must be independent of politics

David Nutt

guardian.co.uk, Friday 15 January 2010 16.39 GMT

Article history

After the politics of recent months, it was great to go to the Science Media Centre today to announce the launch of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD).

I set up the committee because I feel passionately that drugs policy needs to be based on the best available scientific evidence. Crucially, the production and dissemination of this scientific evidence needs to be entirely independent of political influence.

Our committee has funding for an initial two- to three-year period. We have the support of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, which will be helping us run the committee. Most important of all, the committee will have some of the top scientific experts in the country. Over time, the committee will become the key independent scientific body on drugs issues.

One of our first priorities will be to review the effects of "legal highs" such as mephedrone, sometimes referred to as "miaow". Currently, it's perfectly legal to buy and use these drugs in a completely unregulated manner. Yet there are real scientific concerns about the harm they might cause.

We will publish guidance on these drugs to inform public discussion, media coverage and policy formation. We will also publish guidance on the effects of ketamine. This powerful drug is currently a Class C drug. It can have all sorts of unpleasant and long-term side effects on users.

Until recently, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) was actively reviewing both legal highs and ketamine. This work came to a halt following my dismissal as chair and the subsequent resignation of several other scientists. The new Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs will seek to support the work of the ACMD and policy formation by ensuring that the best scientific evidence on the effects of drugs is made available. There has been some speculation that we are setting up a rival body. This is simply not the case.

The new committee will also provide accessible information on drugs to the wider public and engage in an ongoing dialogue. We will be developing a dynamic web presence and making sure that all our work is freely available. We will also be using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter: indeed, you can follow me now on Twitter at @ProfDavidNutt.

All too often, crucial information on the effects of drugs is buried away in arcane scientific journals and the debates of expert groups. We want to make sure that this information is much more accessible.

Foreign secretary claims security would be harmed by disclosing CIA files on UK involvement in abuse of terror suspects abroad

• Richard Norton-Taylor and Afua Hirsch
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 December 2009 18.41 GMT
• Article history

Undated handout photo of Binyam Mohamed. Photograph: PA

Efforts will be stepped up tomorrow to suppress evidence of British involvement in the unlawful treatment of a UK resident, Binyam Mohamed, who says he was tortured in Pakistan, Morocco, and Afghanistan before being secretly rendered to Guantánamo Bay.

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, is appealing against six high court judgments ruling that CIA information on Mohamed's treatment, and what MI5 and MI6 knew about it, must be disclosed.

In a case which lawyers on all sides agree is unprecedented, counsel for the Guardian and other media organisations, Mohamed and two civil rights groups, Liberty and Justice, will argue tomorrow that the public interest in disclosing the role played by British and US agencies in unlawful activities far outweighs any claim about potential threats to national security.

Miliband's lawyers will tell Britain's three most senior appeal court judges, led by the lord chief justice, Igor Judge, that if the CIA material is disclosed the US might cut off the supply of intelligence to the UK, thus harming national security.

Since losing in the high court, David Millband has instructed one of the country's most expensive advocates, Jonathan Sumption QC, to represent his position. Sumption, who recently withdrew his application to become a justice of the supreme court after reports of "hostility" from other judges, is reported to earn up to £3m a year and is described by experts as one of the bar's "most formidable" opponents".

Sources say the decision to instruct Sumption comes amid growing concern within the government at the high court rulings, which officials had confidently expected to be in their favour.

In their six judgments, Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones repeatedly challenged Miliband's claims. It is the first case in which the high court has questioned head-on claims by a government that evidence must be withheld on grounds of national security.

At the heart of the dispute is a seven-paragraph CIA document that the British government insists must remain secret. The two high court judges, who have seen the document, insist it does not contain any sensitive intelligence material. "What is contained in those seven redacted paragraphs gives rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".

The judges stated after hearing arguments put by Miliband's lawyers: "It was in our view difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters."

They added: "Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials, or officials of another state, where the evidence was relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be".

The two high court judges continued: "The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," they ruled.

"A vital public interest requires ... that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain ... Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy," they added.

The CIA information includes an account given to British intelligence "whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan ... prior to his interview by an officer of the security service", the judges revealed earlier this year. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for "possible criminal wrongdoing".

Miliband's claim that Britain's intelligence relationship would be jeopardised "lacks credibility on its face", the judges added.

The Guardian and other newspaper and broadcasting media groups argue that there is no wider public interest to be taken into account in the case than "open justice, the rule of law and democratic accountability".

Miliband was accused in the high court of wanting to suppress information about CIA activities even though details had already been disclosed by the Obama administration. Evidence that Miliband still wanted kept secret related to the question why "it was impossible to believe that President Obama would take action against the United Kingdom", the judges said.

Lawyers acting for the foreign secretary point to a letter sent by the CIA to MI6 in April, saying that if British judges ordered the information at issue to be disclosed the US might reassess its intelligence-sharing relationship with the UK. "The evidence that disclosure would cause serious harm to national security is overwhelming," Miliband's lawyers claim.

They point to a law lords ruling last year that the Serious Fraud Office could not pursue corruption allegations over arms sales by BAE Systems, Britain's biggest weapons maker, to Saudi Arabia because the Saudi government had threatened to stop intelligence-sharing with Britain. The case, in which Sumption also represented the government, has been described by critics as weakening the UK's reputation for observing the rule of law.

Tahaya Buchanan, an American fugitive who'd been on the run for more than two years, dodging a national arrest warrant for insurance fraud, has spent her years underground gainfully employed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Buchanan had been indicted in New Jersey for insurance fraud in 2007, and a warrant for her arrest was issued that December and was posted to the National Crime Information Center in January 2008. New Jersey prosecutor Michael Morris said they believed Buchanan had been working for Homeland Security in New Jersey in 2007, and might have been transferred to the department's immigration office in Georgia at some point during the investigation.

That's where authorities lost track of her.

"We found it surprising [and] alarming," Morris said, "that an employee of the Department of Homeland Security is a fraudster, and we do not understand how she could have remained employed there with an open criminal warrant for her arrest remaining on the interstate system without being discovered."

Fugitive Located Inside Homeland Security Department Office

It started out as a well-intentioned attempt to bring festive cheer to some of society's most neglected members – the hundreds of children who each year are caught up in the UK's asylum system.

But when the Anglican church's leading expert on Father Christmas, dressed as St Nicholas himself, arrived with one of Britain's most distinguished clerics to distribute presents to children held at the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire, things took a turn straight out of Dickens.

An unedifying standoff developed that saw the security personnel who guard the perimeter fence prevent St Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the imprisoned, from delivering £300 worth of presents donated by congregations of several London churches.

In a red robe and long white beard, clutching a bishop's mitre and crook, St Nick – in real life, the Rev Canon James Rosenthal, a world authority on St Nicholas of Myra, the inspiration for Father Christmas – gently protested that he was not a security threat, but to no avail.

Then as St Nicholas, accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, attempted to bless the gifts, the increasingly angry security guards called the police. The resulting ill-tempered and surreal impasse between church and state was videotaped by asylum seeker support groups and could become an internet viral hit.

The row comes amid mounting concern about the treatment of children in immigration removal centres. Last week senior doctors called for an immediate end to the "profoundly harmful" detention of children in immigration removal centres. In today's Observer a number of leading children's authors – including Michael Morpurgo, Michael Bond and Philip Pullman – have signed a letter calling for an end to child detention.

Rosenthal, who regularly appears alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury at festive parades, is the founder of the St Nicholas Society, which was set up to promote "interest, learning, and appreciation of the tradition of St Nicholas".

"St Nick has never been turned away from anywhere before," Rosenthal said. "So I was extremely disappointed not to be able to hand deliver the gifts to the children detained at Yarl's Wood. I hope the kids realise that they will be firmly in my prayers."

The St Nicholas Society, along with Citizens for Sanctuary, which campaigns to end the detention of children and families in the asylum system, is writing to the centre's management to complain at how it handled the pre-announced visit. They have complained about the heavy-handed tactics employed by the guards who patrol the perimeter fence and Serco, the private company that operates Yarl's Wood.

The two groups say that Serco refused requests to provide details about the 35 children in the centre so they could receive appropriate presents. They complain that the company did not respond to numerous requests to discuss how a handover of presents could be carried out if St Nicholas was prevented from entering during his visit this month.

Serco also refused permission for the two clerics to enter the centre to visit two refugee families later the same day, as it had previously agreed. They were handed letters from Dawn Elaine, contracts manager at Yarl's Wood, saying permission had been revoked because of "concerns about your conduct".

The minor row is threatening to escalate into a bigger furore over the government's policy of keeping children in Immigration Removal Centres.

"If this is how visitors are treated, I shudder to imagine what else transpires inside Yarl's Wood," Rosenthal said.

Sagovsky added: "This was about bringing a moment of joy to kids locked up in a deplorable situation. I can't help but contrast the smiles and wonderment on the faces of the children St Nicholas visited at a local primary school with the sad fate of those kids who will be locked up in Yarl's Wood over Christmas."

It is estimated that 1,000 children are detained every year. Last week the Royal Colleges of Paediatrics and Child Health, alongside leading GPs, psychiatrists and the UK Faculty of Public Health, warned the detention of children and their families caused "significant harm" and should be ended without delay.

Dr Philip Collins, a forensic adolescent psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, said children of asylum seekers were "uniquely at risk" of "very high levels" of mental health problems.

The organisation Medical Justice said it had seen more than 100 children in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, and shared the doctors' concerns. The organisation's clinical director, Dr Frank Arnold, said: "Our findings accord exactly with those of the royal colleges.

Over the years, when challenged, the response of UK Borders Agency (UKBA), and the private company it subcontracts healthcare to, have ranged from pleading ignorance, to painting walls a different colour, to publishing a vast number of documents, which prove meaningless because the health outcomes for children seem no better, and remain frightening."

A spokesman for Serco referred questions to the Home Office, which insists only people subject to stringent security checks can be allowed into the detention centre and there can be no exceptions.

However, it seems even the Home Office is keen to avoid being labelled Scrooge. Alan Kittle, Director of Detention Services for the UK Border Agency said: "UKBA already has procedures in place to ensure any children held in detention over the Christmas period receive a present and get to see Santa."