‘Seized material contained official secrets’

A senior Government intelligence adviser told judges that information taken from David Miranda – partner of Glenn Greenwald, who has worked with US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden, on a series of security services exposes – included information that was “misappropriated” and “classified”.

Oliver Robbins, deputy national security adviser for intelligence, security and resilience in the Cabinet Office, outlined why security services and police needed to “make use” of material seized after Mr Miranda was detained, in a statement released by the Home Office.

But following a hearing in London yesterday, Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief, Guardian News & Media, said: “Mr Robbins makes a number of unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims in his witness statement.

“The way the Government has behaved over the past three months belies the picture of urgency and crisis they have painted. “The Government claims that they have at all times acted with the utmost urgency because of what they believed to be a grave threat to national security. However, their behaviour since early June – when the Guardian’s first Snowden articles were published – belies these claims.”

In a statement, he said, the Government’s behaviour did not match “their rhetoric in trying to justify and exploit this dismaying blurring of terrorism and journalism”.

Mr Miranda, 28, who was held at the airport for nine hours on Sunday 18 August, is challenging his detention in the High Court.

He has launched an application for judicial review, arguing his detention was a misuse of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and breached his human rights.

He was held without charge for the maximum time permitted under anti-terror legislation relating to port and border controls as he changed planes on a journey from Berlin to his home in Brazil. His case is due to be fully aired at a High Court trial in October.

Mr Robbins’s written statement was released following a preliminary hearing when judges heard that the parties involved had agreed the terms of a temporary order relating to the extent of the use of the material taken from Mr Miranda pending that hearing.

His statement said that information that has been accessed “consists entirely of misappropriated classified material” in the form of approximately 58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents.

“I can confirm that the disclosure of this information would cause harm to UK national security,” he added.

Judges have already heard that a criminal investigation is underway.

Lawyers representing police have told the court a mass of material had been discovered, some of which was “highly sensitive” and would be “gravely injurious to public safety” if disclosed.

Mr Robbins said security service classifications warned that the compromise of secret information could “threaten life directly” and the compromise of top secret information could “lead directly to widespread loss of life”. He said there was a “particular concern” the identity of an intelligence officer might be revealed.

Mr Miranda’s lawyer, Gwendolen Morgan, said her client looked forward to the “opportunity to have the Government’s actions and assertions fully scrutinised” at the October hearing.