IN
November 1997, a full year after the trial, it was disclosed by ex-MI5 officer
David Shayler that prior to the Israeli Embassy bombing the British intelligence
services had actually received specific information from "impeccable sources"
that such an attack was imminent. Despite being so warned, says Shayler, MI5
did nothing and failed even to pass on the information to the police or the
Israeli government.
Shayler claims that the MI5 officer who received the warning failed to act on
it and the report was later found buried in a cupboard, leading to speculation
that there had been an attempt at a cover up.
None of this was ever disclosed at the trial. Clearly the details of this information
are of vital importance to Samar and Jawad; it could well point the finger of
responsibility elsewhere and enable them to be freed. But since these revelations
were made public, the British government has obtained injunctions to prevent
any of the details coming out. David Shayler was arrested in France and held
in a Paris jail for nearly four months as attempts were made by the British
government to extradite him to Britain to face charges under the Official Secrets
Act. In November 1998 this attempted extradition was quashed by the French court
and he was released. As of writing, however, the details of the information
received by MI5 have still not been revealed. Indeed, the Crown Prosecution
Service have actually requested a Public Interest Immunity (PII) hearing in
order to have this information withheld on public security grounds. This hearing
will be held in London, in secret, with only the prosecution attending, on 15
March, 1999.
Several PII hearings also took place before and during the trial as the
prosecution succeeded in covering up a considerable amount of information relating
to the British and Israeli governments' investigations into the bombings. For
instance, the defence were given at best sketchy details of one report, with
large sections blacked out, of what was discussed at the meetings that had taken
place after the bombings between experts and officials of the British and Israeli
governments. Notably, at this meeting the experts seem to have decided that
what was later to become one of the main pieces of prosecution evidence against
Samar and Jawad was unlikely to have any connection at all with the bombings
.
PII hearings are used by governments as a tool to avoid disclosure. Referring
to this practice, the Scott report into the Matrix-Churchill affair stated that,
"In the event it was the failure of the prosecution to identify and disclose
to the defendants the several relevant documents held on FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth
Office], MOD [Ministry of Defence] and the intelligence agencies' files that
led the Court of Appeal to conclude, in effect, that the defendants had been
deprived of the opportunity to have a fair trial."
Furthermore, in August 1998, over a year and half after Samar and Jawad were
convicted, there was another leak of previously undisclosed material. It was
revealed that, soon after the bombings, a senior MI5 manager had written a note
expressing his view that they had been carried out by the Israelis themselves
in order to provoke the British into tightening security provisions. Remember,
the Mossad base in Britain was closed down in 1987 after the assassination in
London of the Palestinian cartoonist Naji El-Ali. So why was this MI5 manager's
report not disclosed? Whether or not he was right, the fact that a senior MI5
manager thought that the bombings were carried out by the Israelis must alone
cast doubt upon the police and the prosecution's certainty that Palestinians
violently opposed to the peace process were behind them. This, in turn, must
make one seriously question the safety of Samar and Jawad's convictions. It
is reprehensible that this piece of evidence, like so much else, was covered
up and not disclosed to the jury or the defence at the trial.
