Legal News

An Australian lawyer Jennifer Robinson acting for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, was left stunned when she was stopped at the Heathrow and told that she was on a secret watch list and required special clearance before she could board her plane to fly home.

Ms Robinson said she was shocked after being told by an airline crew that she was on an ‘inhibited person list’ which meant that she must have ‘done something controversial’.

Ms Robinson said that she could not understand why she was on the list as she had never done anything controversial or criminal.

She had only represented clients around the world, one of whom was Mr Assange.

She added that under Australian law, a citizen does not need special clearance when returning to their own country, regardless of whether they were on any watch-lists.

The WikiLeaks supporters are in the belief that the ‘inhibited person list’ could be a secret US or British watch-list that monitors the international movements of certain individuals but both the governments have denied having any such database operating.

The Australian government had also denied having such a list. Ms Robinson, 31, said the incident raises so many questions.

She said why would she need a clearance to travel to her own country? A question she says has not been answered properly.

The human rights lawyer is a member of Mr Assange’s legal team, which has been fighting his extradition to Sweden on alleged sexual assault offences.

She was also his legal adviser when WikiLeaks published US military documents as well as diplomatic cables from American embassies.

She was trying to board a Virgin Atlantic plane from Heathrow to Sydney, where she was going to attend a Commonwealth lawyers’ conference. Eventually, she was issued with a boarding pass and allowed to catch her flight.

The incident happened in April but this is the first time Ms Robinson has talked about it to a British newspaper.

Virgin Atlantic said it could not comment on the case ‘due to data protection’.