A lawyer representing Hamas in a legal case in the UK is seeking a judicial review to challenge North Wales Police after he was stopped and questioned, and his mobile phone seized.
The solicitor, Fahad Ansari, an Irish citizen, was detained for nearly three hours after being stopped under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to seize and copy electronic devices at UK borders without reason for suspicion.
The case is understood to be the first time police have used Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act to seize a phone belonging to a solicitor in the UK.
Ansari today filed a claim for a judicial review against the chief constable of North Wales Police and the Home Office.
His lawyers are seeking an urgent injunction to prevent North Wales Police from examining the contents of his work phone, which contains legally privileged material relating to his work as a solicitor for multiple clients.
He is also challenging the lawfulness of a police decision to take a sample of his DNA and fingerprints.
Lawyer stopped at ferry port
Ansari’s car was flagged down by four police officers as he disembarked from a ferry in Holyhead with his wife and four children, following a trip to visit relatives in Ireland.
He was ordered out of the car and detained, but after the interview started, officers returned to the car to obtain his phone from his wife. “It is very clear that they wanted my mobile phone,” he said.
The solicitor said the police refused to let him retrieve details of the family’s accommodation booking from the phone to allow his wife and children to leave the ferry terminal. “I think that was just leverage against me to carry on cooperating,” he said.
Police officers told Ansari to hand over the password to his phone, warning him that to fail to do so would be an arrestable offence.
“They asked me to disable face ID and disable stolen device protection. I guess this was to ensure that they could access apps that might be accessible by face ID,” he said.
Ansari, a registered freelance solicitor, is a consultant at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, where he specialises in national security and complex human rights cases, after training at Fisher Meredith LLP and Birnberg Peirce.
He is acting for Hamas, which has been listed as a banned terrorist organisation in the UK since 2021, in an appeal to challenge its proscribed status through the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC).
In June, Ansari set up a company called Riverway to the Sea, described as “a new front in the struggle against Zionism”.
Phone contained legally privileged material
Ansari said he told police officers that 98% of the phone’s contents was related to his work as a solicitor, meaning that it would be protected by legal privilege.
Schedule 7 stops are designed to determine whether a person is involved in terrorism, but Ansari said he was questioned about “ridiculous stuff”, including what his A-levels were and how often he goes to a Mosque.
He said the police interviewer appeared surprised when Ansari said he was a lawyer for Hamas in the UK, and asked whether that could be verified on the internet. They hinted that they were being passed questions by MI5, Ansari said.
Police also questioned him about Palestine Action, a direct action protest group that was proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 in July after members were accused of criminal damage caused by spraying paint over two jets at an airforce base. Ansari has no connection with the group.
Following the interview, Ansari said he was asked whether he would give permission to counter-terrorism police to contact him in future to discuss threats to the UK. He understood this to be an offer to act as a source for either the Security Service or counter-terrorism police.
Ansari told Computer Weekly that he gave the police the password to his phone after they gave assurances that material would not be downloaded or examined until an independent lawyer had checked through it, and that he would be contacted “very soon”.
Police officers told Ansari that he was not stopped at random, but for a reason. Ansari asked whether the stop was related to the Security Service, and was told he was “pretty close to the mark”.
Police have given no reasons for stop
In a claim for a judicial review filed today, lawyers argue that police appeared to have stopped Ansari on the unlawful grounds that his client, Hamas, may have been of interest to the Security Service.
“A Schedule 7 power 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,” Ansari’s lawyers said in the claim.
Ansari’s lawyers say police have given no explanation of why it was considered necessary or proportionate to examine Ansari’s work phone, given that he is a practising solicitor and that the device contains legally privileged information. They argue that it should have been obvious to police that he was a solicitor, not a terrorist.
Welsh police have appointed an independent counsel and have asked Ansari to provide keywords to identify legally privileged material on his phone, but Ansari’s lawyers say the contents of the phone are “overwhelmingly” covered by legal privilege and that it would not be possible to separate out any non-privileged material.
Police have not explained how privileged material will be properly safeguarded by an independent counsel, say Ansari’s lawyers. They argue that it is not possible to provide search terms that would identify all privileged material on the phone.
The phone contains a significant volume of protected data, including communications, browsing history, voice memos, location data, images, financial material and metadata relating to clients, witnesses, their family members and lawyers, over 14 years.
The material includes a significant number of cases where there are anonymity orders, and it would be a breach of court orders for Ansari to provide the names of those clients as search terms to Welsh police or an independent counsel.
Ansari’s lawyers argue that North Wales Police carried out a “targeted stop”, knowing that Ansari was not a terrorist but a responsible solicitor.
They say police have not provided an adequate explanation for the stop and have repeatedly failed to explain why detaining Ansari, questioning him and examining the contents of his phone were necessary and proportionate.
South Wales Police, which is responsible for counter-terrorism in Wales, has denied that Ansari was stopped because of his political views, and maintains that asking him questions about proscribed organisations is not unlawful.
Ansari said he consulted the Treasury before acting for Hamas, took advice from an external counsel, and acted pro bono to ensure he did not break sanctions.
South Wales Police has been approached for comment.
