House of Lords refuse to hear Babar Ahmad's appeal - implications for Gary McKinnon

The fact that the Committee of the House of Lords has refused to hear Babar Ahmad's appeal.

The House of Lords have refused Babar Ahmad permission to appeal against his US extradition. The Lords concluded that the two points of Law presented to them were not matters of “public importance” and hence rejected the appeal.

Babar Ahmad's lawyers are now taking the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights where it is expected that a decision will be given by Thursday 14 th June 2007. If they too refuse to intervene, then no other appeal stages remain and Babar Ahmad would be extradited to the US imminently.

This is very bad for Gary McKinnon, as his case is almost the same as Babar Ahmad's on one of the two points of law which have been certified for submission to the House of Lords, i.e. regarding unsigned diplomatic notes etc. and Military Order No. 1 which decrees military tribunals rather than civilian courts, for those deemed to be "enemy combatants".

Strangely, Gary is technically more at risk of being labelled as a terrorist or enemy combatant than the radical Muslims Babar Ahmad and Haroon Rashid Aswat, who are not accused of "attacking" the US Military. Although Gary would be unlikely to be sent to Guantanamo Bay, for propaganda reasons, he could easily be subjected to the same sort of restrictions under the Special Administrative Measures scheme, at any other US Federal prison.

Remember that the normal mode in which the US prison and justice system operates in, is that anyone who has legally fought extradition to the USA is deemed to be a "flight risk", and is therefore not granted bail, and is remanded to prison, awaiting trial. Exceptionally, after huge publicity in the UK, the NatWest 3 bankers were allowed bail, presumably for media spin purposes - N.B. they are still awaiting trial nearly a year after their extradition to the USA.