UK government in bid to withhold material from In Amenas inquest
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Version 0 of 1. The Foreign Office is attempting to withhold security information from an inquest into the deaths of seven British hostages in a jihadi attack last year. Government lawyers have resorted to the rarely used legal device of a public interest immunity (PII) certificate, allowing them to apply to keep back from a court hearing material deemed too sensitive to be released in open court. The manoeuvre was revealed at the long-running In Amenas inquest being held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Seven Britons died in January 2013 when an Algerian gas plant was targeted by al-Qaida-linked militants. The In Amenas complex in the Sahara desert was operated jointly by BP, the Algerian state company Sonatrach and the Norwegian firm Statoil. The men – six UK passport holders and a UK resident – were among 40 hostages killed by insurgents during a four-day standoff. The Britons who died were: Carson Bilsland and Kenneth Whiteside, both from Scotland; Sebastian John, from Norfolk; Stephen Green, from Hampshire; Paul Morgan and Garry Barlow, both from Liverpool, and Carlos Estrada, originally from Colombia but who lived in London. The inquest began in mid-September and had been due to last six weeks, but legal arguments have delayed its progress. The coroner, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, reconvened the hearing on 18 December with a brief public hearing before going into closed session to discuss what categories of information could be covered by the PII certificate. A statement on behalf of the coroner’s court said: “Following the issue of a public interest immunity (PII) certificate by the secretary of state for foreign and Commonwealth affairs, Philip Hammond MP, on 15th December 2014, a PII hearing commenced at the Royal Courts of Justice on 18th December. The inquest will resume sitting in public in the new year and it is anticipated that further evidence will be heard on 7th January 2015.” Lawyers for the families have expressed concern in earlier hearings about the delays the PII has caused and the secrecy surrounding the process. In October, Neil Garnham, QC, who represents several of the victims’ families, told the inquest: “If PII is being claimed then there will have to have been a certificate signed by a minister which asserts the immunity. In my submission, the families would be entitled to see that certificate. “It may well be that there will be a confidential schedule to the certificate identifying the individual documents in respect of which immunity is claimed and we might not be entitled to see that, depending on its contents. “But there is no reason at all … why the certificate itself should not be disclosed and the families ought to be entitled to make submissions as to the principles to be applied by the court in determining whether or not the certificate should be upheld or overturned.” The families and their lawyers will not be allowed to see documents covered by a PII certificate, nor can the coroner take it into account in his final verdict. “This process,” Garnham added, “appears nothing less than mysterious to those I represent … and the result is likely to be that either HMG material exists which is irrelevant and so need not be disclosed, or which is relevant but cannot be disclosed because of PII.” A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “HMG have made an application for public interest immunity, which the coroner is considering.” |