United Kingdom: : Court of Appeal rules on principle of “open justice” and national security

• Autores: David Goldberg
• Localización: IRIS: Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory, ISSN-e 1023-8565, Nº. 4, 2016
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Erol Incedal, a 28-year-old law student from south London, was arrested in October 2013 and found to be in possession of a bomb-making manual on a memory card hidden inside his mobile phone case. He had been stopped for speeding in an E-class Mercedes, and a piece of paper inside his glasses case had a note of the address of a property owned by ex-prime minister Tony Blair and his wife. Following an almost totally secret trial, he was cleared of plotting a terrorist attack on the streets of London but was imprisoned for having the manual in his possession. Only 10 of the almost 70 hours of evidence were heard in open court. 10 specially accredited journalists were allowed to hear some of the secret evidence in locked sessions, but they were banned from telling others what they had seen or heard, and the Court retained their notebooks (mobile phones had to be surrendered on entering the Court and were locked away). More than a third of the prosecution case was held in complete secrecy with the journalists told they could face jail if they ever revealed what they had heard.