Lawyer For Op Delhi Defendants Releases Statement
The lawyer representing the three men accused of allegedly sabotaging or hacking the Gibraltar’s national security centralised intelligence system (NSCIS) (Thomas Cornelio, John Perez and Caine Sanchez) has released a statement today.
Their lawyer Ben Cooper KC said: “Throughout the course of the main Inquiry hearing, witnesses and counsel have repeatedly stated in open session that my clients, the former Op Delhi Defendants, sabotaged or ‘hacked’ the NSCIS, with serious consequences.
“My clients applied to dismiss all charges brought against them at the earliest opportunity. They prepared detailed written arguments which explained why the Crown’s own evidence did not show the commission of any criminal offence — because competition, even with Blands, is not an offence in Gibraltar. The premature termination of the criminal proceedings by the HMAG very shortly before the Chief Justice was due to hear these arguments deprived them of their opportunity to present these arguments in public and have them fairly and properly adjudicated upon. Since then they have had to sit by as the repeated allegations made in the course of the Inquiry have further fuelled public suspicion. The consequence is that the public may have been misled into thinking that they are guilty of the charges that were brought; this is not the case.
“Today the Chief Justice has granted our application for the independent expert witness report of Dr Paul Hunton, which was served on us by the Crown in the criminal proceedings as unused material, to be disclosed subject to redactions proposed by the Attorney General.
“The Hunton Report was the only potentially admissible evidence which the Crown had in respect of the principal computer misuse offences, which were themselves a key ingredient of the misconceived charge of conspiracy to defraud. The Hunton Report was prepared solely on information provided by the complainant, Bland Limited, and on the incorrect premise that the NSCIS belonged to Bland and not HMGoG. The report followed a series of careful briefings of the expert by the RGP and by Bland employees. “Nonetheless, the Crown’s own expert, whose evidence was pivotal for the success of the prosecution, in fact undermined the Prosecution’s case, concluding that what had occurred may have been legitimate system administration — as my clients had consistently maintained since their arrests in 2019. We were not able to refer to or disclose this expert evidence until the order was made by the Chief Justice today. It is an important application of the principle of open justice and provides my clients with a first opportunity to set the record straight.”
