https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/judge-rules-october-raid-on-my-home
I have won back my computers and phones.
A court has ruled that the raid and resulting seizure of my devices that British “counter-terror” police carried out on my home in October were unlawful.
The most senior judge at London’s Central Criminal Court ruled on 13 May that the search warrants used in the raid were unlawfully issued and said the police must hand back all the computers, phones and other devices that they took that day.
The police have today handed back all seven seized items.
The dawn raid happened in the early hours of 17 October 2024.
As my colleague at The Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah reported at the time: “Approximately 10 officers arrived at [Asa] Winstanley’s North London home before 6 am and served the journalist with warrants and other papers authorising them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.”
Police have now admitted these warrants were improperly obtained and therefore illegal.
In his ruling the Recorder of London, Mark Lucraft KC (the Old Bailey’s highest circuit judge) wrote that he was “very troubled by the way in which the search warrant was drafted, approved and granted where items were to be seized from a journalist”.
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