UK COURT ORDERS POLICE RETURN DEVICES TO JOURNALIST ASA WINSTANLEY

Above photo: Asa Winstanley speaking at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign event in Newcastle last month. Sam Bacon/Canny Candid Photography.

A British court has ruled that UK police must hand back electronic devices seized from The Electronic Intifada’s Asa Winstanley in October 2024, in what lawyers have described as a “resounding victory for press freedom.”

All seven seized items were handed back on Tuesday, Winstanley confirmed in a statement.

The recorder of London, Mark Lucraft, London’s highest circuit judge, on 13 May ruled that a search warrant used by London’s Metropolitan Police to seize seven items from Winstanley’s home was unlawfully issued.

“I am very troubled by the way in which the search warrant was drafted, approved and granted where items were to be seized from a journalist,” Judge Lucraft wrote in his ruling.

The judge also denied the police’s request for a “production order,” a legal power that can be invoked in British courts to require journalists to disclose documents in limited cases.

“Any warrant seeking material in the hands of a journalist requires extremely careful handling,” Judge Lucraft noted.

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Winstanley’s legal team was less circumspect. Jude Bunting KC argued that the police had provided “a case study in how not to apply” for a search warrant.

“Wrong statute, wrong court, too wide and unbalanced,” Bunting had said in a submission the judge ultimately agreed with. “As unlawful as a search warrant application can possibly be.”

Police seized the devices in an early morning raid on Winstanley’s North London home on 17 October 2024.

Some 10 officers served the journalist with warrants and other papers they claimed authorized them to search his house and vehicle for devices and documents.

A letter addressed to Winstanley from the “Counter Terrorism Command” of the Metropolitan Police said they were investigating “possible offenses” under sections 1 and 2 of the Terrorism Act (2006). These provisions set out the purported offense of “encouragement of terrorism.”

The raid was widely criticized, including by the National Union of Journalists, which funded Winstanley’s legal team.

The “rising use” of counter-terrorism legislation, the union wrote in a statement, is being “used against journalists as an intimidatory measure harmful to public interest journalism and press freedom.”

To date, Winstanley has not been charged with any crime.

Resounding victory

In his first statement since the ruling, the journalist called on police to drop their investigation and pay compensation.

“I call on the police to drop their ongoing investigation into my tweets and to apologize for the unlawful raid on my home and seizure of my devices,” Winstanley wrote.

“They should provide compensation for the harm caused to me and my family, as well as for any detriment to my journalistic contacts and sources.”

Tayab Ali, Winstanley’s and The Electronic Intifada’s solicitor and a partner at Bindmans law firm, said:

“This ruling is a resounding victory for press freedom and the rule of law. The police’s actions – raiding a journalist’s home under the guise of counter-terrorism – were not only unlawful, they were an egregious abuse of power aimed at intimidating a journalist whose work challenged the political status quo.”

Winstanley is not the only journalist who has run afoul of the British police’s interpretation of counter-terrorism legislation.

Independent journalists Richard Medhurst and Sarah Wilkinson, both prominently associated with reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, were detained in separate instances in August 2024. Medhurst was questioned at the UK’s Heathrow Airport while Wilkinson’s home was raided.

“The Metropolitan Police must now undertake an urgent and transparent review of how they use terrorism legislation, especially against journalists,” Ali said in a statement to The Electronic Intifada.

Winstanley’s case, he added, “highlights a deeply concerning trend: counter-terrorism powers being weaponised against critics of government policy and defenders of Palestinian rights.”