Solicitor faces contempt hearing

Aamer Anwar will face a contempt of court hearing in the new year

A lawyer is to face a two-day contempt of court hearing over comments he made about the conviction of a student on terror charges.

Aamer Anwar appeared before three judges for a preliminary hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh.

It followed a statement he read which denounced the guilty verdict on Mohammed Atif Siddique, 21, who was jailed for eight years.

The contempt hearing is expected to take place in the new year.

The trial judge Lord Carloway said Mr Anwar had made "disparaging remarks" about the jury and the prosecution.

He said the statement also contained remarks which were untrue and misleading, when he called Mr Anwar before him to explain his conduct.

Court criticism

In court, Stephen Woolman QC told the judge Mr Anwar made the statement on behalf of Siddique.

In referring the matter to three judges at the High Court in Edinburgh, Lord Carloway said it was clear they were Mr Anwar's own views.

Glasgow-based Mr Anwar appeared before Lords Osborne, Macfadyen and Kingarth.

They decided that two days should be set aside to hear the arguments in the case, although they did not fix a specific date for the hearing.

Lord Osborne requested that transcripts of the statement made at the High Court in Glasgow and of a subsequent television interview on the BBC's Newsnight Scotland be made available to the court when the full hearing takes place.

Defence QC Paul McBride, representing Mr Anwar, said it would take six or seven weeks for the various transcripts to be prepared.

The judge also ordered the transcription of the defence speech made to the jury during the trial and a transcript of the hearing before Lord Carloway when the matter was first discussed.

Lord Osborne said he wanted to know whether the accused in the trial had authorised the statement that was delivered.

Criminal charges

Mr Anwar made no comment as he left the building.

Computer student Siddique, from Alva in Clackmannanshire, was found guilty of providing material on bomb making and weapons training and threatening to become a suicide bomber.

He was jailed for eight years in October.

In his statement, read out on the steps of the High Court in Glasgow, his solicitor, Mr Anwar, denounced the decision as a "tragedy for justice and for freedom of speech".

He claimed the computing student did not receive a fair trial and that the trial was heard in an "atmosphere of hostility".

And the lawyer also said that the prosecution was "driven by the state".

Lord Carloway said Anwar's statement seemed to criticise the court as "not being an independent and objective forum for the determination of criminal charges but part of a system of unfairness and repression".

He said: "A private citizen may choose to make such criticisms or attacks on the courts and the law, but it is another thing for a law agent in a particular case to use his position in that case to do so."