Lawyer Ben Keith acting for Bahraini activist Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei featured in The Guardian | UK home secretary apologises over unlawful detention of Bahraini activist
Ben Keith featured in The Guardian on 8 January 2024
The home secretary, James Cleverly, has apologised and arranged for compensation to be paid to a human rights activist after officials unlawfully detained him at Gatwick airport on his return to the UK from a UN meeting in Switzerland.
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, a prominent Bahraini human rights activist and advocacy director of the London-based NGO Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, is a torture survivor who was granted asylum in the UK in 2012 after he fled persecution at the hands of Bahraini authorities.
Alwadaei was stopped by UK Border Force officials on 29 September last year after returning from Geneva, where he had addressed the UN human rights council about abuses experienced by political prisoners in Bahrain.
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Alwadaei’s lawyer, Ben Keith of 5SAH, filed a pre-action protocol letter to challenge the Gatwick detention, arguing that Border Force officials were unlawfully exercising powers to stop, detain and arrest an individual without suspicion under immigration rules.
He asked the Home Office to update Alwadaei’s record in a way that removed any possible flag that would trigger future automatic checks at the border.
The government responded with a letter apologising and offering compensation. The letter further states: “The secretary of state for the home department of course is unable to provide any assurance that your client will never be stopped and questioned by Border Force officers in the normal course of their duties, as it would be inappropriate for him to do so.”
Alwadaei said: “Exposing human rights violations of the Bahraini regime has often come at a personal cost and reprisals against me and my family back in Bahrain. To be detained upon my return to the UK was very distressing and came soon after the Bahraini regime pledged to invest £1bn into the UK economy and was rewarded by the UK government removing it from its human rights priority list.”
Keith said: “It is concerning that my client has been detained unlawfully. No reasons have been put forward by the Home Office. So we are left to speculate as to whether he was stopped because of an unpublished watch list, an Interpol notice or simple incompetence.”
The article can be read in full here.
Photo via Unsplash (Christian Lue)
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Ben Keith is a barrister at 5SAH Chambers specializing in cross-border and international cases. He has extensive experience in extradition, human rights, and public international law. He has represented clients in many high-profile cases, including those involving political asylum and Interpol Red Notices.
