David Shayler has lost an appeal which argued he should be able
to claim he
revealed state secrets in the interest of the public.
The Court of Appeal has backed an earlier decision that Shayler,
35, need not
have gone public with revelations about alleged illegal activity
in the
security services.
Lawyers for the former spy had argued his human rights would be
infringed
during next months Official Secrets Act trial if he was
prevented using the
public interest defence.
The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, sitting with Mr Justice
Wright and Mr
Justice Leveson, refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords,
but Mr
Shayler's lawyers can still apply directly to the Lords.
Shayler's solicitor John Wadham, director of civil rights group
Liberty,
said: "We are definitely going to appeal to the House of Lords,
particularly
because we want to see the Official Secrets Act reformed and we
hope the
House of Lords will be able to help on that."
The Court of Appeal concluded that there was no basis on which
Mr Shayler
could identify the action by some external agency which was
going to create
imminent threats to life or limb of members of the public as a
result of the
alleged abuses or to identify the members of the public at risk.
After his appeal was dismissed, Shayler said politicians and
judges were
complicit in allowing MI5 and MI6 to get away with murder and to
ignore
evidence of impending terror strikes.
"In the context of what's happening today it will be an enormous
tragedy if
MI5 had information and did not react to it," said Shayler
outside the High
Court."
(c) Copyright Ananova Ltd 2001, all rights reserved.
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