In a devastating blow, on 1 November 2001, the appeal judges completely dismissed Samar and Jawad’s appeal against their convictions. The judges virtually repeated the prosecution’s case in their judgement:

1. The new evidence and the suppression of evidence would have had no impact, and anyway the jury must have known that there were many candidates for carrying out the London bombings. Except for the minor detail that the jury was told that there were no other suspects, and as the police officer in charge of the investigation into the bombings, said at trial on 4/11/1996: "one of the big things about this investigation, frankly is the intelligence vacuum that surrounds it. There was nobody anywhere in the world who can give any indication of any clue about anybody doing anything. This is a straightforward police investigation."

2. There is no breach of human rights or the right to a fair trial. The Human Rights Act does not necessarily provide a protection for breaches that happened before 2000. On 5/11/2001 Amnesty International wrote that Samar and Jawad "have been denied the right to a fair trial and that their convictions are unsafe."

3. The material seen in the closed secret hearing is rightly withheld because "it affects national security at the highest level, and would, if disclosed, present a clear and immediate threat to life". So there is the most serious material about the bombings, but it is so dangerous that it cannot be revealed. Although it does not relate to Samar and Jawad, they are guilty anyway.

4. The "human errors" are perfectly natural. The crates of secret evidence brought for their lordships would "have had no impact on trial". To say the least, this is colluding with bungling: the probability of so many "errors" occurring by chance by the police, prosecution, MI5 and MI6, and remaining hushed for 6 years, must be a million to one.

5. Their lordships refused to hear evidence from Tim Wise, evidence about a suspect (now calling himself Corleone). Nevertheless, they concluded that his evidence does not prove that Corleone was party to the bombings, and the defence could have investigated that at trial. Actually, at trial, the message noting Wise’s contact with the police was one out of thousands of messages. A short response from the Anti-Terrorist branch dismissed this message, with no reference to the map of the embassy. Never mind the police lost all the documents.

6. Samar and Jawad were also refused leave to appeal against their sentences. Such a rejection is neither surprising nor uncommon. Many miscarriages of justice cases lose their first appeal, such as the Bridgewater 4, M-25 Three, Susan May and Eddie Gilfoyle (dismissed by Lord Justice Rose last December).

We must not forget the terribly difficult atmosphere following the sickening attacks in the USA and the war on Afghanistan. Beyond that, it was very unlikely that the system would admit that something had gone wrong. Samar and Jawad, as two Palestinians were simply too easy a target for framing. They are two scapegoats that are easy to bury alive with the evidence.

Jawad stated: "This was a political trial from day one and we are totally innocent. The real perpetrators still remain free. We were only convenient scapegoats. We are innocent political prisoners of a highly political conflict, no peace can exist without the resolution of this as well as of the wider injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people."

Samar said: "The different branches of the British government have mad a mockery of the British legal system by their repeated cover-ups and interference, and left any semblance of "due legal process" in tatters. How can fairness be claimed when mountains of evidence or information is hidden or withheld, even from the trial judge. I AM INNOCENT and nothing and nobody will make me a terrorist."

Samar and Jawad are currently waiting for their case to be heard in the House of Lords, however, this might take a very long time, months if not years. To help their case please write to Tony Blair, David Blunkett, prosecution, and/or your MP to protest at this gross injustice (The main issues in previous standard letters are still relevant and we also have new letters on our website).