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UK Customs hassle Snowden’s lawyer

by on18 February 2014


 
It is the custom in Blighty

Jesselyn Radack, a human rights lawyer representing Edward Snowden, has claimed that she was detained and questioned in a "very hostile" manner on Saturday by London Heathrow Airport's Customs staff. Radack said she was taken to a room to be questioned by a Heathrow Border Force officer who showed little interest in her passport documents but subjected her to questioning about whistle-blowers Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

She is a former an ethics advisor to the United States Department of Justice, who became a whistle-blower herself after disclosing an ethics violation made by the FBI in their interrogation of "American Taliban" suspect John Walker Lindh in 2001. Radack was on her way to London to meet up with the Sam Adams Associates, a group of retired CIA officers that promotes ethics and accountability and integrity of government. The group also gives out an annual whistleblower award to people who have made achievements in ethics.

She told the border agent that she was going to see members of this group, and when he realised that the meeting would be happening at the Ecuadorian Embassy, he went on to ask her if Julian Assange would be in attendance and to ask her about why she had travelled to Russia twice in three months. It turned out that the US had put on an "inhibited persons list.” It means the US Transportation Security Administration has officially instructed an airport operator or aircraft operator not to provide the individual with access to an area or with a boarding pass to the destination.

However she seems to have had no support from the Tory Government in the UK Former Tory MP and author Louise Mensch has been responding to Radack's tweets saying she was "proud" that Heathrow Border Force were "doing "their lawful job" by interrogating Radack. She has also insisted that Radack is not actually Snowden's lawyer but merely just a "legal advisor" trying to claim attorney-client privilege.

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