Hamas lawyer seeks appeal following police’s seizure of his phone at Welsh port

A lawyer who acted for Hamas is seeking to appeal after a court refused an interim injunction to prevent the examination of the contents of his mobile phone after he was stopped and questioned by police.

Fahad Ansari, a solicitor who filed a legal challenge from Hamas against its proscription as a terrorist organisation in the UK, was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at Holyhead Port on 6 August 2025 following a family holiday in Ireland.

It’s believed to be the first targeted use of Schedule 7 powers, which allow police to stop and question people and seize their electronic devices without the need for suspicion, against a practising solicitor.

During the stop, counter-terrorism officers seized Ansari’s work phone, and downloaded and copied its contents, which included confidential and legally privileged client material, accumulated over 15 years of practice.

The High Court ordered that a two-day judicial hearing will take place in May 2026, to decide on whether the police’s detention, seizure and retention of the human rights lawyer’s work mobile phone violated public law.

Ansari is bringing legal action against the North Wales Police and the Home Office. Hugh Southey KC, representing Ansari, argued in a hearing last week that the police relied on unlawful or irrelevant considerations in detaining him and seizing his phone.

Southey said the police’s handling of Ansari’s work mobile phone breached both domestic procedural and fundamental rights protections under the European Convention on Human Rights, and that the retention of 15 years of privileged data was disproportionate under the right to private and family life.

In the modern world, Southey said that “ultimately, searching a mobile phone is more sensitive than searching a house”, and as such, there should be a very high threshold for phone seizures.

He argued in written submissions that copying and retaining data from a solicitor’s phone would deter people from seeking legal representation due to fear of their personal and sensitive data being obtained by the state through their lawyer’s devices.

Georgina Wolfe, representing the police, told the court that it “cannot be right … for any solicitor to have a cast iron defence to protect their electronic device from ever being searched”, which she argued “is the effect of the claimant’s argument”.

Ansari boycotted the large sections of the hearing, which was held behind closed doors. He called this closed material procedure “a fundamentally unfair process” stating that he “cannot trust a system where the British state’s allegations and “evidence are kept secret from me”.

Justice Chamberlain said: “The hearing will have to take place after the completion of the disclosure process,” which he said could take “several months”. He ruled that the case would be heard at a “rolled up” hearing.

Ansari said in a statement following the hearing that he believed he had been targeted because the state was interested in his client, Hamas. “It is deeply concerning that the court is prepared to compromise legal privilege based on an unproven and secret assertion of national security,” he said.

Ansari said he would seek to appeal the court’s decision to refuse to grant an interim injunction to prevent the examination of his mobile phone.