However after trial, our main thoughts and aim was to find new evidence and ways of proving our innocence. On 2 November 1997 David Shayler revealed to the Mail on Sunday that MI5 received a written report containing specific information from a highly reliable source as he put it, warning of an imminent attack on the Israeli embassy. We've been trying to gain access to this information but have failed so far. On the way there has been numerous Public Interest Immunity ( PII) hearings or as they are simply known as gagging orders. Some of these PII hearings have actually occurred prior to our original trial, and even during and after the trial. We could not have had a fair trial with all this amount of undisclosed information withheld from us, withheld from the prosecution and from the defence as well. The disclosure of such information I argue would cast a doubt on the safety of our conviction and would be the kind of evidence needed for a successful appeal.

Why am I saying this? Because the premise on which we were convicted was simply that we had formed our own English Palestinian group with no support from any known organisation, and that we've got together and decided on a whim to bomb the Israeli embassy and hey presto we just went and did it. However the presence of the MI5 report itself, forgetting the substance of it, actually refute the basis on which we were convicted. The report would logically indicate a known outfit, organisation, state or whatever that is perceived as a threat, and has been monitored by an outside or an inside informant, or agent, or agencies rather than bunch of home grown amateur group, UK made as we were branded and prosecuted for the bombings.

We can couple that with the original deficiencies in the trial itself, the lack of forensic evidence and a clear link between us and the bombings, in which all the evidence against us was all circumstantial and depended on the interpretations of the prosecution of that circumstantial evidence. And this was actually acknowledged in the judges' summing up when the judge said "Now I'm going to turn to the evidence members of the jury, forgive me if I say in some ways it is rather like trying to get a firm grip on a piece of soap in the bath".

The non disclosure of relevant information to the defence has been at the heart of numerous miscarriages of justice, and the PII procedure is also an inherently unfair procedure that has been abused too often in the recent past. There are numerous cases that prove time and again that the use of PII certificates or gagging orders is only a cheap way of covering up the tracks of something that they don't want to come out. The case of an Irish prisoner Nick Mullen who has spent 10 years in prison is the latest example. He was here in Frankland up to last February 1999, and his conviction was quashed when the judges realised the amount of cover up and collusion between different branches of the British government and law enforcement agencies. I quote this from the Guardian written at the time: " the disclosures showed a meeting in Feb 1989 of officials from the police and security services, the Foreign and Commonwealth office and the Home Office that had agreed on a dishonest response to questions about the affair from the media or Parliament"

What particularly concerns me here, is that there is no reason, legal or otherwise, to believe that these agencies collectively or individually, will not follow the same course of action in our case as in Nick's case, especially when both cases are political ones. In addition I would say that the PII is a clear breach of the European Convention of Human Rights which specifies that each person is entitled to a fair and public hearing. The PII hearings cannot be considered either fair or public, since the defence is excluded from it and it is held in secret. The Commission actually ruled in a unanimous finding on the 22 of March 1999 that such nondisclosure of evidence under the guise of PII certificates constitute a denial of a fair trial to the accused. Hence we had an unfair trial and the only thing the British authorities should do is to quash our conviction, if they want to be fair that is.

In Palestine, the Israeli authorities justify the continued internment of Palestinian prisoners, who are known as administrative detainees, by a very similar procedure to the current British PII system. An army prosecutor with a security services' agent sit with the judge, who is usually a military judge, and they discuss and decide the fate of the detainee without him or his lawyer being privy to any of the information or discussion. After that they usually renew his detention for another six months. These secretive hearings and trials have been on principle boycotted by Palestinian political prisoners. In comparison, Britain seem to have already refined this unfair practice by not even bothering to inform the prisoner or his lawyer of any hearing whatsoever. The current British practice seem to be even worse than the original British emergency regulations which were in force in Palestine until 1947. Furthermore the Israelis always quote this law as basis for their draconian and unfair system of internment. However to see the procedure alive and well, fully refined and still functioning in today's Britain is a mockery to justice.

The Home Secretary Jack Straw signed a PII gagging order in May 1998 preventing us access to this vital information, but there is a lot of confusion here as I thought Jack Straw is a politician and politicians shouldn't in a democracy be involved in a judicial process. So when we lobbied the Home Secretary to try and ask him to let us know what was in the document and give us access to it as we should, he answered that he does not get involved in judicial matters. So why did he get involved in the first place by issuing a gagging order on a document that is our ticket to freedom, and that would be the way to prove our innocence. This is total hypocrisy.

Our case always manages to find itself in uncharted territory, and we always find ourselves being an exception to a solid rule or a solid law. To mention but three; the time limit between the committal to trial and the actual trial is a 70 day period, this is stated clearly by law. It is only cases of treason that this can be extended. However when we judicially reviewed the decision we were told that the decision should stand and that an extension for that period could be given because our case was an exceptional one.
When New Labour was elected to power on a promise of open government, we thought our prayers have been answered. The freedom of information bill was another manifesto commitment which we thought will help us all the information that we needed. But we found that even if the freedom on information bill was to be applied to the letter, our case would have been an exception anyway because it would not have applied to the security services.
When I wrote to Tom King MP, who is the chairman of the Parliamentary committee on intelligence and security, I was told they do not deal with individual cases. So who do I really need to speak to, to get some redress here? Do I have to actually call the head of the Ml5 and try and knock some sense into him and say could you please release the information so we could have a fair trial? If the politicians do not have, or Parliament does not have, control over the security services then who does? Does the security services really run the country? The Melita Norwood's case seems to be pointing towards that, so really should we instead of lobbying Jack Straw be really lobbying the head of the Ml5?
The real exception in our case is that it is a political one. This is strongly evident when you read, for example, the "gist" that we have received two months ago of why the Home Office thinks that we ought to be kept Cat. A prisoners in British jails; they submit that if were to become cat B prisoners and still inside British jails that somehow this would adversely affect the peace process in the Middle East. I couldn't work this one out maybe you could.
But what it goes to prove is that the political considerations behind the case are so strong and clearly stated in more than one statement during the trial and after the trial in so many reports, that it becomes difficult to differentiate between the judicial and political aspects in the case. Furthermore, the involvement of the Home Secretary which represents the executive branch of the government in making decisions as far as gagging orders are concerned without the knowledge of the judiciary, make a mockery of the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary. And when this also runs in the smallest of reports, like the gist in the Cat A review which a political reason, though it is wrong, is given as an excuse not to decategorise, is only more evidence that this is a politically influenced case rather than anything else.

The hard campaigning that we have done recently had helped bring about our leave to appeal, but we need to do much more to secure a fair appeal, free from cover ups or political influence. Because there have been so many exceptions in our case to the norms and the rules and so much of the case actually is suspended in uncharted, untested and unfamiliar territory as far as the law is concerned, specially when it comes to the application of the Human Rights law into British law. That is why we need a lot of campaigning to ensure that we will not yet again be another exception to another rule which the Human Rights law. Because I'm afraid that we have been an exception to so many standard sets of rules. The Human Rights Law which is coming in has already indicated that we have had an unfair trial. If we don't campaign and lobby the government strongly then we might be another exception to that rule.

That is why we need your help to lobby the government so justice in our case can bedone and the convictions to be quashed as they are based on an unfair trial.

In closing I would like to thank our guest speakers tonight, Dr. Haider Abdel Shafi and Dr. Eyad Al Sarraj, Tony Benn MP, Mrs Gareth Peirce and also the campaign committee that worked very hard on our behalf. Finally thank you all very much for attending, and for all your efforts on our behalf, which give us strength and help alleviate the harsh conditions and make it easier for us to cope with this injustice. Thank you all very much."