Ministers spent £2.4m in legal fees fighting to keep a catastrophic Ministry of Defence data leak secret for two years through the use of an unprecedented superinjunction, it has emerged.
The MoD leak, in February 2022, exposed the details of thousands of Afghans who said they were in danger from the Taliban because of their links to UK forces and now wanted to escape to Britain.
The breach was only discovered in August 2023 when part of the leaked database was posted online, prompting a top-secret government operation that saw 16,000 affected Afghans brought to safety in the UK.
The whole operation was kept secret from the public through the use of a superinjunction brought contramundum, Latin for against the world.
Now, freedom of information data shared with The New York Times has revealed that the government spent £2.4m in legal fees fighting to keep the scheme secret.
The hidden resettlement scheme, the fact the data the data was leaked, and the injunction itself were only revealed after a court battle lasting almost two years in which media organisations - including The Independent – fought to lift the order.
The government admitted after the superinjunction was lifted that information crucial to its overturning was available last year. The unprecedented gagging order was finally lifted in July after a review commissioned by Defence Secretary John Healey found that the threat of danger to those on the list was not significant.
In a written response to a High Court judge’s demands for further investigation on why the order could not be lifted sooner, a senior government official admitted that a large amount of the information allowing publication of the breach was already known to the Ministry of Defence.
High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain had previously decided to lift the superinjunction in May 2024, partly because he felt that the secrecy was preventing Afghans from being able to take steps to help themselves, as the order meant the 18,700 Afghans affected could not be told their information had been compromised.
However, the government appealed this decision in a bid to keep the order in place, and those affected by the breach only learned they had been exposed when the superinjunction was lifted.
Figures for the legal costs of defending the order come as Afghans promised a new life in the UK have been detained in Pakistan police raids.
A former Afghan interpreter who was exposed in the MoD breach has been detained after having his offer of relocation to the UK revoked. A former Afghan special forces commando and his family have also been detained and taken to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, according to a family member who managed to avoid arrest.
The Ministry of Defence has been contacted for comment.
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