Points of the judgment
In a devastating blow, on 1 November 2001, the appeal judges completely dismissed Samar and Jawad's appeal against their convictions. Cries of 'SHAME' greeted this judgement, which seems to turn the world on its head, punishing the innocent and leaving the guilty free. 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." So the warning received and disseminated could not have made a difference! Except that the prosecution could not have argued that a small London-based group carried out the bombings. So everyone is trying to bomb the Israeli Embassy, and a well-known international terrorist organisation was about to do it, but then the hapless Samar and Jawad nipped in and beat them to it … Several intelligence sources were sending danger signals about such attacks, but no one noticed, no one even checked if the cameras at the embassy were working.

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. Although the Court of Appeal accepted that in all the precedent cases the withholding of
evidence from the trial judge had caused a breach of the right to a fair trial, the appeal judges then went on to say that that did not necessarily mean that it would necessarily be unfair in every case for them to hold a secret hearing to consider 'new' evidence i.e. Samar and Jawad's case is, for some reason different to all the others. 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 the two idiots in the dock, they are guilty anyway. This is clearly part of the veils of secrecy that the authorities have pulled around this case. It should worry all those who believe in accountability and freedom of information; it's also a serious setback for improvements in disclosure practices that were won in previous cases.

4. The "human errors" are perfectly natural. The crates of secret evidence brought for their lordships would "have had no impact on trial". There is "no sinister implication: we do not take the view that deliberate malpractice is a necessary or proper inference from repeated human error." 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 refuse 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. Never mind the fuss made at trial about a tiny sketch of Sidon, which police tried to make into evidence of planning the bombing in Finchley. Never mind that, at trial, the defence was unable to investigate a car involved in a "dry-run" of the bombing because police had lost the logs of the entrance to the road to the embassy.

6. Samar and Jawad were also refused leave to appeal against their sentences. Lord Justice Rose said: "Those who … place bombs in the heart of this city cannot expect their conduct to be treated by anything other than very substantial terms of imprisonment." It would help for a start if police bothered to look for the actual bombers! Sickening as it is, 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). Even today, the rate of success at the Courts is 5%, as appeal judges are typically dismissive towards new evidence. This is why we are supporting the campaign to reform the courts. 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.

The Way ahead
Samar and Jawad send their thanks to all of the sponsors and supporters of the campaign. The defence team are already working to submit an application or "petition" the House of Lords, and the case may well go to the European Court of Human Rights. The bitter harvest is many more months, if not years, of incarceration for Samar and Jawad. This gross injustice must be contested as much as possible by us, the public, in whose name this gross injustice has been perpetrated.
The campaign is updating material and will continue to work with human rights and civil liberties groups and sympathetic members of parliament, to expose the human rights breaches in this case and the serious issues it raises, particularly about the accountability of the secret services. We want to broaden our support in this country and abroad. In the UK, we want to follow the lead of Wolverhampton Unison and get motions of support from trade unions.
Our presence at the court could not be missed as well as our protest banners and T-shirts inside the court. We had banners and placards outside with many supporters. People came from Cardiff, Wolverhampton Unison, Durham, Sheffield, Cambridge and other areas. Thanks to all.
The appeal was observed by Amnesty International and the Arab Organisation for Human Rights. We had media coverage from BBC TV and radio, ITN's London Tonight, The Guardian, the Hendon Times, Le Monde, as well as the Arab media - Al Hayat, Al Quds, Al Sharq-al-Awsat, TV stations Al Jazeerah and Future TV.

Action
We are meeting with activist and other organisations to discuss our future campaigning, but we need your ideas. We will be having a 'strategy meeting' on 6 December 2001, in Conway Hall. In the meantime you can:
• renew your sponsorship and send donations so we can continue the campaign. Please make cheques payable to FOSA and post to: Freedom & Justice for Samar & Jawad, BM FOSA, London WC1N 3XX;
• write to Tony Blair, David Blunkett, prosecution, and/or your MP to protest at this gross injustice. We must let the authorities know that the result of the appeal is appalling. (The main issues in previous standard letters are still relevant).

Campaign Activities up to the appeal
With Samar & Jawad's agreement we embarked on some actions to reach a wider audience. First we had a wonderful concert of classical French and Spanish and Kurdish music to which we invited lots of celebrities. Although many could not attend we had informed them about the case. We've had very supportive responses from people like Emma Thompson, Jo Brand, Andy de la Tour, William Dalrymple, John Pilger, Dr Swee Ang, Sukhdev Reel, Mrs Doreen Lawrence, David Shayler and Annie Machon.

The Lebanese film on the case which has received widespread showing in the Middle East was shown at a special meeting in SOAS on 8 October. The programme was thorough and is an excellent way to explain the case. We will organise another showing.

A campaign bus was our next stunt. Driving round central London with banners, balloons, a megaphone and handing out leaflets, we got noticed by hundreds of people. This was a very uplifting day because we felt supported by each other and were reaching out to new people. the effect of one such activity may not be great but we will need to think of more similar stunts to get more people just asking why?

Of course we carried on with the petition and handed it in to 10 Downing Street in the week before the appeal. It has been a good way of broadening support and raising the profile of this case. The 4400 signature petition was signed by people from Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Jordan, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, USA. They include artists, actors, writers, teachers, lecturers, lawyers, politicians, journalists, activists, trade unionists, public figures and people from all walks of life.