MI5’s partially secret policy allowing agents and informants to participate in serious crimes is lawful, judges have ruled by a three-to-two majority. Many of the key arguments turned on the exploitation of informants within the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Part of the IPT hearing was held behind closed doors with the media and lawyers for the claimants excluded. But, he concluded he was “unable to find that the 1989 [Security Service] Act provides any legal basis for the policy under challenge”. In the second dissenting judgment, Prof Graham Zellick QC, was more critical, arguing that parliament had never authorised such a policy.

Source: The Guardian December 20, 2019 12:27 UTC