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Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

I hope to, if I am able to develop my thoughts. Much of our criminal law is territorial, applying to acts committed in England and Wales or by British people, but we have agreed to prosecute those who commit crimes such as grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, torture and taking hostages here, wherever or by whoever those crimes are committed. That is universal jurisdiction intended by all the countries who accede to it to ensure that there is no international hiding place for perpetrators of grave crime. We have a duty to seek out the culprits, and either to extradite them or to prosecute them here. For example, in 2005 an Afghan warlord, Zardad, was successfully prosecuted in the United Kingdom for torture offences abroad. In the United Kingdom, it is not only the police who can initiate proceedings; any individual can apply to a magistrate for a summons or warrant to bring someone to court. The test for the magistrate is whether there is prima facie evidence of an offence on the part of the person named. Many cases involving serious offences cannot proceed beyond that stage without the Attorney-General's consent. I have a little experience of that, having chaired Indict, a human rights organisation which for seven years gathered evidence against Iraqi war criminals, many of whom are appearing in an Iraqi court or have already been sentenced. I have no time to go into what happened then, but in the current circumstances it is extremely difficult to obtain an arrest warrant. It took two years just to discuss the case of Tariq Aziz with the Attorney-General and with Scotland Yard. It was then thrown back to the Attorney-General, and we did not secure a decision. There was a strong possibility that Tariq Aziz, who travelled a good deal, had come to this country, perhaps to spend Christmas with George Galloway, who had spent Christmas with him in the past. We did not manage to obtain that arrest warrant. English law does not allow arrest warrants to be granted on flimsy evidence, but although our evidence was very strong indeed, we still could not obtain one. Only two of the 10 private arrest warrant applications made in the past 10 years have been granted. Nothing needs fixing, as nothing has been broken. Universal jurisdiction is a vital, agreed-on basis for tackling impunity in states that do not sign up to the International Criminal Court.