Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5 can authorize its agents to engage in criminal activities, potentially including murder, kidnap and torture, a London court ruled, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new government prepares to overhaul espionage laws.
Judges on the Investigatory Powers Tribunal declared in a majority decision that MI5 has the power to permit informants to operate in criminal groups, even if the policy itself confers no legal immunity. The case focused on powers that were only disclosed last year by then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
“The case raises one of the most profound issues which can face a democratic society governed by the rule of law, Judge Rabinder Singh said in the ruling.
The decision comes as Johnson seeks to update laws to bring them in line with the U.S. in a crackdown on spies, saboteurs and hackers working for foreign states such as Russia, North Korea and Iran. Preventing MI5 from running agents in criminal organizations “would strike at the core activities of the Security Service,” the judges said.
The tribunal cited the agency’s own guidelines to agents and handlers that said the authorization “will be the service’s explanation and justification of its decision,” if the agent’s activities were to be scrutinized by police or other prosecution authorities.
Human rights campaigning groups including Reprieve had asked the court to grant an injunction “restraining further unlawful conduct.” The request was dismissed in a 3-2 decision, which was also the first time a dissenting opinion has ever been published in the tribunal’s 20-year history, Reprieve said.
“The IPT’s knife-edge judgment, with unprecedented published dissenting opinions, shows just how dubious the government’s secret policy is,” Maya Foa, Reprieve’s director, said in a statement. She said the groups planned to seek permission to appeal.
“The use of covert agents is an essential tool for MI5 as it carries out its job of keeping the country safe,” a spokesman for the Home Office said in a statement. SOURCE: BLOOMBERG.
License to kill: MI5 agents can commit serious crimes like murder and torture, tribunal rules
A UK tribunal has ruled that British secret agents can lawfully commit grave criminal offenses including murder, kidnap, and torture in the course of intelligence gathering.
Representing the British government, Sir James Eadie QC said it would be “impossible” for agents to maintain cover if they were not allowed to do so.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled 3-2 in favor of the government, saying that MI5’s guidelines do not breach human rights and that the agency has an “implied power” under the Security Service Act 1989 to authorise crimes.
The case was brought against the Security Service by four human rights organisations – Privacy International, Reprieve, the Committee on the Administration of Justice, and the Pat Finucane Centre.
The groups had asked the IPT to declare the policy illegal and grant an injunction “restraining further unlawful conduct.”
While the tribunal ruled in favor of the government, it added that its 56-page judgement does not mean MI5 has “any power to confer immunity from liability under either the criminal law or the civil law.”
In other words, the ruling does not grant those who commit serious crimes immunity from prosecution. The official authorization of crimes acts as the service’s “explanation and justification of its decision should the criminal activity of the agent come under scrutiny by an external body, e.g. the police or prosecuting authorities.”
In the majority opinion, Lord Justice Singh said that preventing agents from committing crimes “would strike at the core activities of the Security Service.”
The case marked the first time the IPT, which hears complaints about the intelligence services, has ever published dissenting opinions.
In his dissenting judgement, Professor Graham Zellick QC said that accepting the government’s arguments “would open the door to the lawful exercise of other powers of which we have no notice or notion, creating uncertainty and a potential for abuse.”
The British government’s home affairs department said it was “pleased” with the ruling, adding that “the use of covert agents is an essential tool for MI5.”
During an earlier hearing in November, Ben Jaffey QC, who represented the coalition of civil liberties groups, said it appeared that MI5 thinks it can authorize “grave criminality” if it thinks it would be “in the public interest.” At that hearing, Jaffey said the policy “appears to have led to grave breaches of fundamental rights.”
He referred to the 1989 murder of Irish solicitor Pat Finucane which was later found to have involved the British state, and the case of Freddie Scappaticci, who he added “is alleged to have been a senior member of the IRA and a security service agent working under the codename ‘Stakeknife.’”
Jaffey said the ruling meant that MI5 was in effect granting immunity to agents.
The four human rights groups who brought the case said they would appeal the tribunal’s decision. Source: RT.