Appeal from the Crown Prosecution Service Under Section 58 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 Sub nom R v IK, AB and KA [2007] EWCA Crim 971 will interest practitioners advising on alleged terrorist financing.
The case involved three separate defendants who stated that they obtained false identity documentation and provided funds to the Lybian Islamic Fighting Group, which aims to remove the Gadaffi regime from Lybia. They claimed that these activities were humanitarian efforts to help Gadaffi's opponents leave Lybia safely. The police dispute this, accusing them of funding fighting activities of the group and broader Islamic terrorist activities. The activities in question all took place prior to the LIFG becoming a proscribed terrorist group.
The case highlights the following important points:
- Issuing a certificate under the ATCSA 2001 is not an implied promise not to prosecute the subject of the certificate for related criminal offences.
- Issuing a certificate and holding a hearing before SIAC does not constitute criminal proceedings and so double jeopardy cannot arise.
- Mere possession of information by police which may alert them to proffering more serious charges is not sufficient to result in double jeopardy precluding the later, more serious charges.
- What needs to be shown to warrant a stay of proceedings is bad faith, oppression or a high degree of police incompetence conducive to a miscarriage of justice which would amount to an abuse of process.
- The prosecution is under no duty to delay proceedings for lower level offences, where they do not have sufficient information to bring charges for the more serious offences.
The first defendant had been subject to a certificate ordering his deportation under the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001, which he successfully appealed to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission on the basis that the police were unable to demonstrate a link between LIFG and Al Qaeda, which is required for the issuing of the certificate.
The other two defendants had been charged with forgery offences, to which they pleaded guilty in early 2004. They were sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment and released in July 2005.
Following further investigation into the material obtained during raids relating to the initial dealings with the defendants, all three were arrested in December 2005 and charged with terrorism offences. They appealed on the basis that such charges should be stayed as they breached the rules against double jeopardy. Their appeals were dismissed on the basis of the points outlined above.