Chakrabarti: Troop witchhunt lawyer Shiner ‘just lost his way’

SHAMI Chakrabarti yesterday launched a ‘shameful’ defence of a disgraced human rights lawyer who was struck off for orchestrating a witch-hunt against British troops.

In an extraordinary intervention, the shadow attorney general praised shamed human rights lawyer Phil Shiner for his ‘good work’ and described his downfall as ‘very sad’, suggesting he was a ‘public servant who lost his way’.

She also said ministers were wrong to consider exempting British troops from European human rights rules on the battlefield in future conflicts – suggesting Labour would leave the door open to soldiers being pursued through the courts for years.

Shiner was struck off as a solicitor this month after he was found guilty of multiple professional misconduct charges, including dishonesty and lack of integrity.

His firm, Public Interest Lawyers, was responsible for two-thirds of the 3,668 cases submitted to the Iraq Historical Allegations Team (Ihat) – the taxpayer-funded

‘Child-like understanding’

inquiry into alleged abuses by British troops who served in Iraq which is to be shut down.

But Lady Chakrabarti, who worked closely with Shiner during her time as head of human rights group Liberty, told ITV’s Peston on Sunday it was wrong to demonise him and that his conduct should not be used as an excuse to remove troops from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

But Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former Army officer, condemned Lady Chakrabarti’s intervention, accusing her of a ‘child-like understanding of the reality of military operations.’

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former British commander in Afghanistan, described Lady Chakrabarti’s defence of Shiner as ‘shameful’, saying she had ‘supported and encouraged him at every turn’.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon announced last week that Ihat would be wound up within months in the wake of Shiner’s downfall and he wants to exempt troops from the ECHR and avoid ‘such reckless denigration’.