LONDON: A British lawyer who issued Hamas’ legal challenge against its ban in the UK said he was unlawfully detained under the Terrorism Act last month, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Fahad Ansari said his phone, which contained legally privileged information, was examined by police because he was known to have Hamas as a client.
On Wednesday, he launched legal proceedings against Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the chief constable of north Wales police over the incident.
Ansari said on Aug. 6, while returning from a family holiday in Ireland, he was stopped by officers at Holyhead port in Wales.
He is challenging his treatment, including detaining and questioning, the seizure of his work phone and the copying of its data for examination.
Jude Bunting KC of Doughty Street Chambers prepared Ansari’s legal challenge against his detention.
The submission said the use of powers under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act — which allows officers 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 during his detention, he was mostly questioned about the banned group Palestine Action.
He was also asked about Hamas, but refused to divulge information due to client confidentiality.
Ansari works in a consultant role at Duncan Lewis solicitors, but was previously director and principal solicitor at Riverway Law which, in a pro bono capacity because of the threat of sanctions, represented Hamas in a challenge to the group’s proscription in the UK.
“In the decade that I have been involved in national security cases, I have never heard of lawyers in England being targeted to this extent because of their clients,” Ansari said.
“I have dealt with the usual media harassment for taking on clients who some consider to be controversial, including Hamas who my law firm represented in its application to be removed from the government’s list of banned groups.
“Some have complained that representing Hamas brings the profession into disrepute. Yet, what really undermines the integrity of the profession is when unpopular clients are unable to secure legal representation because of fear of public opprobrium and state intimidation.”
Because of his role in representing Hamas, Ansari was reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority by the Campaign Against Antisemitism and Robert Jenrick, shadow home secretary at the time.
In his legal challenge over the detention, Ansari is seeking an urgent injunction that would prevent police from sharing the contents of his work phone, which are “overwhelmingly covered by legal privilege.”
He said police detained him for three hours, took his fingerprints and photograph, and swabbed him for DNA.
He was also ordered to remove the face ID and PIN code from his phone under threat of arrest.
If the legal challenge succeeds, Ansari said he will seek damages over trespass to property and person, as well as false imprisonment.
He added that an officer who questioned him over Palestine Action said: “Many people, including my wife, think the ban is ludicrous.”
