The Weekly Round Up: Manston inquiry, Hillsborough Law U-turn, ICJ genocide case, settlement for ‘forever prisoner’ and aid volunteers acquitted
19 January 2026
In the news
The inquiry into the conditions at Manston Short-Term Holding Facility has begun hearing evidence in public. The purpose of the inquiry is to investigate “the decisions, actions and circumstances” that led to significant overcrowding, outbreaks of infectious disease and mistreatment of detained migrant people at the former military base between June and November 2022. The inquiry will also investigate the death of Hussein Haseeb Ahmed, who died from diphtheria after contracting the infection while detained at Manston. The inquiry was downgraded from statutory to independent in September 2024, reducing its powers to compel witnesses to attend. The Home Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, and the Ministry of Justice are due to participate in the inquiry.
On Sunday, the government pulled the third reading of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill 2024-26 — widely referred to as the ‘Hillsborough Law’ — from the parliamentary schedule, amid criticism of a proposed amendment. The draft legislation would create a statutory duty of candour and assistance for public authorities and officials when engaging with inquiries and inquests. The bill would also create a new criminal offence of misleading the public. However, a new amendment proposed by the government had been critcised for creating an opt-out for intelligence officials, by allowing heads of security services to decide whether information is released. Families of the Manchester Arena bombing wrote to the Prime Minister earlier this month, stressing the need for the law not to exempt security agencies. The UK’s Security Service (also known as MI5) was found by the Manchester Arena Inquiry not to have given an “accurate picture” of the key intelligence it held on the suicide bomber who carried out the attack, instead presenting “a retrospective justification” for their actions.
In the courts
Rohingya genocide case
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) began hearings last Monday concerning Myanmar’s role in the genocidal violence against its Rohingya Muslim minority. In Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar: 11 States intervening), The Gambia alleges that Myanmar violated its obligations under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. The case centres on the so-called ‘clearance operations’ carried out by the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s army, in northern Rakhine State in 2016 and 2017, which led to mass murder, pervasive sexual violence and the destruction of Rohingya villages. If Myanmar is found liable for genocide, the Court could order reparations to victims and mandate international monitoring.
As the first genocide case to be heard in more than a decade — and the first brought by a state without any direct connection to the alleged genocide — the judgement is expected to have implications for other genocide cases, including that initiated by South Africa against Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Gambia’s attorney general and justice minister, Dawda A Jallow, told the ICJ on Monday that “many are looking at this case to see if the Genocide Convention is more than just words on paper”.
While this case is being heard at the ICJ until the end of the month, Myanmar is also under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya. In 2024, the ICC prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Myanmar military leader Min Aung Hlaing.
Settlement for Guantanamo Bay detainee
A personal injury claim by a Guantanamo Bay detainee against the British government has been settled out of court for a “substantial sum”. Abu Zubaydah’s civil claim alleged that between 2002 and 2006, the UK’s Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) sent numerous questions to the CIA with the expectation and intention that he would be subjected to torture in order to elicit the information from him. According to the 2014 US Senate Torture Report, Abu Zubaydah had been subjected to the full range of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
In Abu Zubaydah v Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office & others [2023] UKSC 50, the Supreme Court reached a preliminary decision in favour of Abu Zubaydah, holding that English law should be used to determine the claim and not the laws of the various countries where his mistreatment at secret ‘black site’ prisons occurred. The case would have proceeded to judgement, but this settlement intervened.
The European Court of Human Rights previously ordered Poland, Lithuania and Romania to pay compensation to Abu Zubaydah. The Court held that by allowing the CIA to operate ‘black site’ prisons in their territorties, the three countries had violated the European prohibition of torture.
Known as a “forever prisoner”, Abu Zubaydah has been detained by the US without charge for 24 years and remains in detention in Guantanamo Bay.
Greek court clears aid workers of criminal charges
On Thursday, 24 volunteers involved in search-and-rescue activities were acquitted of criminal charges at the Court of Appeal on the Greek island of Lesbos. The group were arrested in 2018, while volunteering with the now dissolved Emergency Response Centre International — an NGO that rescued migrant people at risk of drowning in the Aegean Sea. In proceedings previously labeled as the “largest case of criminalisation of solidarity”, the volunteers were facing up to 20 years in jail, accused of membership of a criminal organisation, fraud, money laundering and facilitating illegal entry of foreigners into Greece. The presiding judge Vassilis Papathanassiou stressed that “waiting to rescue a human life cannot be considered facilitation of illegal entry”.
