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By John Lettice
Published Thursday 14th October 2004 16:14 GMT
Updated Indymedia and other interested parties are to seek an injunction preventing the export of the contents of the servers that were seized last week. This content is thought to have included correspondence with lawyers involved in the case against Genoa police accused of grievous bodily harm, falsifying evidence, slander and abuse of police powers, during and subsequent to the 2001 G8 summit.
The servers housed data belonging to a number of Indymedia journalists, including Mark Covell, who was beaten close to death by Genoa police, and is now involved in actions against them. One demonstrator was shot dead by police. Covell told The Register that email to his lawyers in Italy is likely to have been on the servers, and that a number of separate challenges to the seizures were pending. The injunction is likely to be sought by human rights solicitor Gareth Peirce within the next 24 hours.
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Although it was at first thought that the seizures had been carried out under a US-UK Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), it now seems possible that the framework used was a European version to which the UK, Italy and Switzerland are signatories. The FBI's involvement therefore remains unclear, although it may have been approached initially because the hosting company, Rackspace, is US. MLATs, whose operation is cloaked by secrecy and gagging orders, are intended to provide a mechanism for signatories' security forces to obtain evidence and to make arrests internationally, and they are disturbingly dependent on the bona fides of the requesting party and the judgment of the requested one.
In this case, the latter is the Home Office, which is coming under pressure to explain itself. Richard Allan, Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam, has tabled a written question for David Blunkett for answer tomorrow (Friday). ®