Britain holds Secret Trial to avoid possibly revealing Bush War Crime
For their eyes only
New evidence clears up whether Bush sought to bomb al-Jazeera. But we are not allowed to hear it
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday October 13, 2006
The Guardian
Two men are to be tried behind closed doors in an Old Bailey courtroom in a move that will stop the public finding out whether George Bush proposed what would have been a war crime and how Tony Blair reacted. The evidence the government does not want us to hear is in an official record of a meeting in Washington in April 2004, when the situation in Iraq was deteriorating fast. The memo, it has been reported, refers to Bush's alleged proposal to bomb the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera, and is said to reveal how far Blair went in criticising US military tactics in Iraq at a time when troops were bombarding Falluja.
David Keogh, a former civil servant, is charged with unlawfully disclosing the memo. Leo O'Connor, a former Labour researcher, is charged with disclosing a classified document. The way the government went about demanding a private trial, and the arguments used by the judge to allow it, are deeply disturbing.
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair's foreign-policy adviser, who was present at the Washington meeting, told government lawyers that the disclosure of the memo "could have a serious impact upon the international relations" of the UK, and was likely to have damaged the "promotion or protection" of British interests, including those of British citizens in Iraq.
Sheinwald signed a certificate necessary to persuade the judge that the trial should be held in secret before Keogh and O'Connor were charged at the end of last year. We now know that, soon after the men were charged, government prosecutors requested an adjournment of the pre-trial hearings until April 2006. They said they needed a certificate from the foreign secretary. Two weeks later Margaret Beckett replaced Jack Straw. In June she signed the required certificate. The government has not explained why Straw failed to sign one when he was foreign secretary.
Beckett claims that the disclosure of the memo would be as harmful now as when it was first drawn up: disclosure would have a "serious negative impact on UK/US diplomatic relations. The ultimate consequence ... would be a substantial risk of harm to national security." Beckett continues: "My assessment is that this risk is of such magnitude to outweigh the interest of open public justice."
In his little-noticed ruling the judge, Mr Justice Aikens, elaborates on these claims. The contents of the memo would be read "throughout the world", he warns - a prospect, it seems, too awful to contemplate. There would be "different views on the implications of what was stated" in the memo. "It is reasonable to conclude," he warns, that some individuals, parts of the media, and "even some states", might react "very unfavourably" to the memo's contents. This might be "for no other reason than the topic under discussion was US/UK policy concerning the state of Iraq at a delicate time". And he comes with a trump card. He says: "It is also legitimate, in my view, for the court to bear in mind the ever-present threat to national safety which is posed by the possibility of terrorist acts by extremists in the UK."
Not content with hoisting the flag of the terror threat, the judge says that, had he not agreed to a private trial, the government might have dropped the case and in future would be reluctant to prosecute at all in "this type of case".
At a time when David Blunkett makes money by revealing cabinet discussions, we are prevented from hearing evidence against defendants in a criminal trial simply, say some who have read the memo, to protect ministers from embarrassment. It is a genuine scandal. It is even more so given Blunkett's suggestion on Channel 4's Dispatches programme last night that the US bombing of al-Jazeera would have been justified at the time of the invasion in 2003.
· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor.
http://tinyurl.com/y66kbk
New evidence clears up whether Bush sought to bomb al-Jazeera. But we are not allowed to hear it
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday October 13, 2006
The Guardian
Two men are to be tried behind closed doors in an Old Bailey courtroom in a move that will stop the public finding out whether George Bush proposed what would have been a war crime and how Tony Blair reacted. The evidence the government does not want us to hear is in an official record of a meeting in Washington in April 2004, when the situation in Iraq was deteriorating fast. The memo, it has been reported, refers to Bush's alleged proposal to bomb the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera, and is said to reveal how far Blair went in criticising US military tactics in Iraq at a time when troops were bombarding Falluja.
David Keogh, a former civil servant, is charged with unlawfully disclosing the memo. Leo O'Connor, a former Labour researcher, is charged with disclosing a classified document. The way the government went about demanding a private trial, and the arguments used by the judge to allow it, are deeply disturbing.
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair's foreign-policy adviser, who was present at the Washington meeting, told government lawyers that the disclosure of the memo "could have a serious impact upon the international relations" of the UK, and was likely to have damaged the "promotion or protection" of British interests, including those of British citizens in Iraq.
Sheinwald signed a certificate necessary to persuade the judge that the trial should be held in secret before Keogh and O'Connor were charged at the end of last year. We now know that, soon after the men were charged, government prosecutors requested an adjournment of the pre-trial hearings until April 2006. They said they needed a certificate from the foreign secretary. Two weeks later Margaret Beckett replaced Jack Straw. In June she signed the required certificate. The government has not explained why Straw failed to sign one when he was foreign secretary.
Beckett claims that the disclosure of the memo would be as harmful now as when it was first drawn up: disclosure would have a "serious negative impact on UK/US diplomatic relations. The ultimate consequence ... would be a substantial risk of harm to national security." Beckett continues: "My assessment is that this risk is of such magnitude to outweigh the interest of open public justice."
In his little-noticed ruling the judge, Mr Justice Aikens, elaborates on these claims. The contents of the memo would be read "throughout the world", he warns - a prospect, it seems, too awful to contemplate. There would be "different views on the implications of what was stated" in the memo. "It is reasonable to conclude," he warns, that some individuals, parts of the media, and "even some states", might react "very unfavourably" to the memo's contents. This might be "for no other reason than the topic under discussion was US/UK policy concerning the state of Iraq at a delicate time". And he comes with a trump card. He says: "It is also legitimate, in my view, for the court to bear in mind the ever-present threat to national safety which is posed by the possibility of terrorist acts by extremists in the UK."
Not content with hoisting the flag of the terror threat, the judge says that, had he not agreed to a private trial, the government might have dropped the case and in future would be reluctant to prosecute at all in "this type of case".
At a time when David Blunkett makes money by revealing cabinet discussions, we are prevented from hearing evidence against defendants in a criminal trial simply, say some who have read the memo, to protect ministers from embarrassment. It is a genuine scandal. It is even more so given Blunkett's suggestion on Channel 4's Dispatches programme last night that the US bombing of al-Jazeera would have been justified at the time of the invasion in 2003.
· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor.
http://tinyurl.com/y66kbk
bin66 - 15. Okt, 02:28
