Terrorist's Wife Sylvie Beghal To Get Ruling In Human Rights Breach Case

Terrorist's Wife Sylvie Beghal To Get Ruling In Human Rights Breach Case

The Muslim wife of a convicted terrorist prosecuted after refusing to submit to a police airport interrogation is waiting to hear whether she has won a human rights fight in the Supreme Court.

Sylvie Beghal - whose husband Djamel Beghal was jailed in France - claims that her rights were violated when she was prosecuted, and convicted of offences, after objecting to being questioned under anti-terrorism legislation following her arrival at East Midlands Airport in January 2011.

Five Supreme Court justices analysed her case at a hearing in London late last year are due to deliver a ruling today.

Mrs Beghal, who is French, has already lost a fight in the High Court.

Three judges ruled against her in 2013 following a hearing in the High Court in London.

But they suggested that there might be "room for improvement" to anti-terror legislation which gave police the power to "stop, question and detain" people entering or leaving the UK.

Mrs Beghal's lawyers had said the case was the first in which the High Court had considered whether stop and question powers granted under Schedule 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act were compatible with "fundamental" human rights.

Lawyers have explained how Mrs Beghal had arrived back in England after visiting her husband with her three children when she was stopped.

She was not "suspected" of being a terrorist but police said they needed to speak to her regarding "possible involvement" in terrorism.

Mrs Beghal argued that the process of stopping and questioning "without reasonable suspicion" breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

Supreme Court justices heard that Mrs Beghal had appeared before magistrates in Leicester and been convicted of failing to comply with a duty to answer questions, obstructing a search and assaulting a police officer.

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