2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed and CF, alleged terrorism-related individuals, were arrested in Somaliland and deported to the UK, claiming collusion by UK authorities. Control orders and TPIMs were initially upheld by the Administrative Court but quashed on appeal due to issues of abuse of process and non-disclosure. The case was remitted for reconsideration.
Judgment
Lord Justice Maurice Kay:
Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed (formerly known as CC) and CF are British citizens. On or about 13 January 2011 they were arrested and detained in Somaliland. Although Somaliland is not a sovereign state in international law, the United Kingdom and many other states and international organisations, including the United Nations, have direct dealings with the administration there which operates independently of Somalia. Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed (to whom I shall now refer to as MAM) and CF are persons who were reasonably suspected by the Secretary of State to be, or to have been, involved in terrorism-related activity. They do not appeal findings to that effect. Their case is that they were arrested and detained in Somaliland and were later deported to the United Kingdom unlawfully and with the collusion of the United Kingdom authorities. Upon their return to the United Kingdom, they were subjected to control orders and, later, to terrorism prevention and investigation measures (TPIMs).
The control orders and the TPIMs were considered by way of statutory review by Lord Justice Lloyd Jones at a single hearing in the Administrative Court. He upheld them: [2012] EWHC 2837 (Admin) : [2013] 1 WLR 2171 . On these appeals, the appellants do not challenge the reasonableness of the Secretary of State’s suspicion of terrorism–related activity or the necessity to make the control orders and TPIMs for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism. Their primary (but not their only) case is that the control orders and TPIMs should be quashed because they were obtained by an abuse of process. They contend that their position is analogous to that in the case of Mullen [2000] QB 520 in which a conviction for conspiracy to cause explosions and a sentence of 30 years imprisonment were quashed on grounds of abuse of process because Mullen had been unlawfully deported from Zimbabwe following collusion between the authorities in Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom. His successful appeal did not take issue with the charge of which he was convicted. It rested entirely on the unlawful procurement of his presence before the court.
Before turning to the substance of the present appeals, I should clarify two points. First , when this case was before the Administrative Court MAM was referred to as “CC”. However, he later absconded, in breach of the terms of his TPIM. In addition to the present proceedings, there were ongoin