Sensitive details exposed by the huge Afghan data breach that put tens of thousands of people at risk were revealed by the defence secretary – but the media are still banned from reporting them.
John Healey offered a “sincere apology” on behalf of the British Government for a massive leak which shared information about Afghans seeking to escape to the UK because of their links to British troops and could only be reported after a two-year fight to lift an unprecedented superinjunction.
But in his address to MPs, Mr Healey disclosed details that the media still cannot publish because a strict second gagging order remains in place.
Media organisations, including The Independent, are seeking to overturn that order at the High Court, which would allow information that has previously been kept secret to be revealed.
The breach, made by a Ministry of Defence official in February 2022, triggered a covert government operation that saw 16,000 Afghans evacuated to Britain, with some 8,000 still to come.
The whole operation was kept secret from MPs and the public, with ministers even deciding to hide the true reason for the evacuation from parliament, after the MoD claimed the release of information could put those named in the database at risk of reprisals from the Taliban.
Lifting the superinjunction on Tuesday, High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain called for further investigation after an official review into the data leak “fundamentally undermined the evidential basis” on which the superinjunction had been based.
Media organisations, including The Independent, the Daily Mail and The Times, were hit with a fresh injunction on Tuesday, which banned any mention of certain information, over fears it could risk national security.
But despite MoD lawyers arguing the information should never be shared, Mr Healey revealed some of the details to MPs in Parliament.
Mr Justice Chamberlain called an emergency hearing on Tuesday to address whether the second injunction should now be lifted.
He told the court, in a public hearing, that MoD lawyers were pushing for it to remain in place, arguing that any release of the information would result in “damage to national security”.
“The MoD has asked for time to produce evidence of this... I have reached the provisional view that if evidence will be produced, it will have to be produced very quickly”, he added.
The judge has now given time for media defendants and the MoD to attempt to agree on what information can be published and what must remain secret.
