bahrain

this claim, the difference in approach was likely not lost upon Saudi policy
makers. Similarly, in 2007, the UK government was willing to prosecute Libyan
dissidents, 39 and, as has recently emerged, to directly assist Colonel Gaddafi’s
security apparatus. 40 Arguably, the UK Government’s counter-terrorism policy
and list of proscribed organisations was being manipulated to achieve
diplomatic goals (the efforts to kick-start relations with Iran and Libya). Such
cases may well have created a general impression that the UK’s legal system
was malleable under diplomatic pressure.
The Fallout from Saudi Arabia’s Successful Threat
[16] ‘[U]gly and obviously unwelcome’ 41 though the Saudi Government’s threat to
terminate counter-terrorism co-operation may have been, from the Saudi
perspective it was not unwarranted. Instead, it constituted an effort to avert the
risk of public disorder and terrorism within Saudi Arabia should the SFO expose
endemic corruption amongst the Saudi Royal Family. Seeing how the UK
seemingly adapted its counter-terrorism policy to facilitate relations with Iran
and Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya, Saudi officials were willing to test the claims by
UK diplomats that the SFO operated independently of any political pressure. 42
The abandonment of the investigation and the outcome of the Corner House
case vindicated this prediction. 43
[17] T.E. Lawrence claimed that, in his dealings with the Arabs, he would often find
that they would hold mutually contradictory beliefs; ‘imperturbably unconscious
of the flight, they oscillated from asymptote to asymptote’. 44 Whatever the
veracity of that observation during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, the current
Saudi Government could level a similar charge against UK policy makers.
Often, during the last decade, the public face of the UK’s counter-terrorism
39 See R v F [2007] EWCA Crim 243; [2007] 3 WLR 164.
40 See R. Spencer, ‘Libya: MI6 worked with Gaddafi government on rendition operation’ The
Telegraph (5 Sep. 2011).
41 R (Corner House Research) v Serious Fraud Office [2008] UKHL 60; [2009] 1 AC 756, [41] (Lord
Bingham).
42 ibid., [40].
43 See J. Spencer, ‘Fiat justicia, ruatque concordia cum Arabe?’ (2010) 69 Cambridge Law Journal
456, 457.
44 T. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (first published 1922, London: Random House, 2010) 36.
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