THE APPEAL

SAMAR and Jawad's first application for them to be given an appeal hearing was refused by a single judge in April 1997. This application was renewed and, after a wait of almost two years, will next be heard by a full court of three judges on Monday 29 March 1999 at the Court of Appeal in London.

But remember, a leave to appeal hearing is not an appeal hearing. It is just another hurdle that Samar and Jawad have to overcome before they are even allowed the opportunity to appeal. Their lawyers first have to persuade the three judges in court that their grounds of appeal have enough merit for Samar and Jawad to be allowed to put their case before an appeal court.

Cover-up of MI5 information

GARETH Peirce's repeated attempts to gain access to the information received by MI5 before the bombings, as leaked by David Shayler in November 1997, were, for over a year, met with a wall of silence from the Crown Prosecution Service. "I filed a formal complaint with the Director of Public Prosecutions about this lack of response - about the failure of the CPS to provide us with a reply" she says, but in reply she was told that her request for the information was under 'active consideration'.

Ominously, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the person whose job it is to decide whether or not those intelligence files will be opened, is David Calvert-Smith QC, the chief prosecution counsel at Samar and Jawad's trial. Securing the conviction of Samar and Jawad in relation to the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House was one of the 'achievements' that were cited in the press as having led to him being appointed to the position of DPP. In these circumstances, one shudders to think how impartial his judgment is likely to have been when deciding whether or not to authorise the disclosure of information that could undermine his 'finest hour'.

Then Ms Peirce was told that there would have to be a Public Interest Immunity (PII) hearing in relation to the MI5 information. This PII hearing will be held on Monday 15 March 1999 at the High Court in London, in the same building at which Samar and Jawads leave to appeal hearing will be held a mere two weeks later. At the PII hearing, the judge, in the absence of anyone from the defence, will hear arguments only from the prosecution who will try to persuade him that the MI5 information should be withheld from the defence on the grounds of 'public interest immunity'. Of course, none of Samar and Jawad's legal team will be allowed to play any part in reaching this decision or to know what the information is that is being withheld from them

If some of the MI5 information is released, but some is withheld, the fact that such important evidence has not been disclosed can itself become one of the grounds argued at the leave to appeal hearing on 29 March. Quite simply, the release of this MI5 information, currently being opposed by the prosecution, is vital to Samar and Jawad's chances of success at their leave to appeal hearing and, ultimately, to them proving their innocence.

Aside from these issues surrounding the lack of disclosure of the MI5 information, the following are the current grounds of appeal: