Police wrongly recognized solicitor Fahad Ansari as Hamas member throughout Schedule 7 cellphone seizure
A solicitor who had his cell phone containing legally privileged materials seized and downloaded by police was wrongly described in a police danger evaluation as being a member of Hamas.
Fahad Ansari, who specialises in nationwide safety circumstances, argues that police unlawfully stopped and questioned him as a result of they wrongly “equated” him performing as a lawyer for Hamas with being a member of the proscribed organisation.
The case is believed to be the primary focused use of Schedule 7 powers, which permit police to cease and query individuals and seize their digital units with out the necessity for suspicion, towards a practising solicitor.
The Court docket of Enchantment ordered a direct keep on Tuesday to a judicial overview introduced by Ansari whereas it considers whether or not police needs to be required by legislation to reveal particulars of their case towards him.
Ansari, an Irish solicitor who represents Hamas in a authorized enchantment to have its proscribed standing overturned within the UK, was stopped and questioned by police after returning residence together with his household from Eire to Holyhead in August 2025.
Police danger evaluation acknowledged ‘Hamas’
A police officer who accomplished a danger evaluation made a handwritten observe beneath the heading “membership of a recognized group” stating “Hamas”.
Based on a authorized submission from Ansari’s barrister for a judicial overview initially because of be held in the present day, the police officer was “primarily” equating Ansari, who isn’t a member of Hamas, together with his shopper.
The police officer confirmed in a witness assertion that his observe was inaccurate. “What I had supposed to write down was that Mr Ansari labored as a solicitor for Hamas, and never that he was a member of the group,” he mentioned.
Ansari not questioned in earlier cease
It emerged that Ansari was stopped beforehand in 2024 beneath Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, earlier than he represented Hamas, in what gave the impression to be a random cease.
He recognized himself as a solicitor and was not requested any questions on Hamas or Palestine. He didn’t have his cell phone seized, downloaded or copied, in contrast to his later Schedule 7 cease , barrister Hugh Southey KC, wrote in a skeleton argument.
He mentioned the numerous distinction between the 2 Schedule 7 stops was that Ansari had made an software on behalf of Hamas earlier than the second cease.
The chief constable of North Wales Police has made contradictory statements concerning the causes for stopping Ansari for the second time in 2025.
In January 2026 she acknowledged that “there was an underlying purpose or purpose for the cease: it was not random”. The chief constable now states that she has “not confirmed” that the cease was a “focused cease”.
It seems that the chief constable has approached litigation heard in open court docket in a “confused, contradictory and fewer than candid manor”, Southey wrote.
Legally privileged materials
The cellphone seized by North Wales Police, contained legally privileged materials, together with communications with shoppers, their households, witnesses and specialists, paperwork, monetary data, and web analysis associated to shoppers.
A police officer subsequently ready a listing of key phrases, together with names of UK proscribed organisations and key phrases primarily based on analysis the officer had carried out into Ansari, to permit an impartial counsel to “sift and overview” knowledge on Ansari’s cellphone.
Ansari argues that the safeguards, together with utilizing an impartial counsel to evaluate the contents of the cellphone, have been insufficient to guard legally privileged materials, and that he has no manner of figuring out whether or not such materials was accessed by investigators.
The Chief Constable wrote to Ansari in March this yr stating that the police had accomplished their examination of Ansari’s work cellphone. Ansari has sought affirmation whether or not law enforcement officials had inadvertently seen privileged materials from the cellphone.
Lack of rights
The consequence of the method taken by the Chief Constable of North Wales Police is that Ansari can be entitled to higher safeguards if he have been investigated for having dedicated an precise offence, and the place there had already been a judicial warrant, Southey wrote within the skeleton argument.
Ansari mentioned that Court docket of Enchantment had recognised that his argument for higher disclosure from the police had benefit.
“Beforehand, the Excessive Court docket allowed the police to depend on secret proof. In conditions like this, it’s usually anticipated that a minimum of a abstract of the allegations is shared to permit a semblance of a good listening to,” he wrote in a publish on LinkedIn.
The police’s obvious lack of distinction between being a member of Hamas and being a authorized consultant of Hamas raised “critical issues,” and would deter attorneys from representing proscribed teams, he added.
“This isn’t Belfast within the Eighties when such messages have been delivered by bullets, however the intention feels uncomfortably related: characterize shoppers and face penalties,” he mentioned.
Phantom Parrot
A doc leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, raised issues that data collected from telephones throughout Schedule 7 searches was being covertly collected at UK borders beneath GCHQ’s “Phantom Parrot” programme.
Ansari mentioned that North Wales Police had declined to say whether or not data from his cellphone had been shared with another organisations.
