Fahad Ansari launches legal action against UK home secretary after his phone is seized at Holyhead port
A lawyer who filed Hamas’s challenge to proscription claims he was unlawfully detained under the Terrorism Act, with his phone containing legally privileged information examined because of his client.
Fahad Ansari, who issued legal proceedings on Wednesday against the home secretary and the chief constable of north Wales police, was stopped by officers at the port of Holyhead on 6 August as he returned from a family holiday in Ireland with his wife and four children.
Ansari is challenging the decisions to detain and question him, seize his work mobile phone and retain and seek to examine a copy of the phone.
The grounds for judicial review, prepared by Jude Bunting KC, of Doughty Street Chambers, state that the use of powers under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, which allow offices to stop, question, search and detain a person at a port or border, “cannot be justified against a lawyer by reference to the fact that he has acted for a client of interest to the police or intelligence services in the past, or to obtain information about that client from the lawyer”.
Ansari said the bulk of the questioning was about Palestine Action, the group also recently proscribed under the Terrorism Act. He was asked about Hamas as well but refused to answer questions, citing client confidentiality. The following day, the contents of his phone were copied by the police.
UK: Lawyer who brought Hamas case claims he was unlawfully detained by police
