28 OTHMAN (ABU QATADA) v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 1. Evidence provided by the respondent Government 94. The Government provided a report of 6 September 2009, which had been prepared by two Jordanian lawyers, Mr Al-Khalila and Mr Najdawi, the former Honorary Legal Adviser to the United Kingdom Ambassador to Jordan since 1975. 95. The report outlined the structure of the Jordanian legal system and the various and wide powers of Public Prosecutors whom it characterised as judges with an inquisitorial role. It also outlined the functions of the GID and stated that cooperation between it and the State Security Court was very close. The Public Prosecutor before that court was a military officer whose office was located within GID premises. The report also noted that interrogations by GID officers had the goal of obtaining “confessions” from suspects appearing before the State Security Court (quotation marks in the original). 96. The report stated that the rights of the accused had been enhanced by amendments made in 2001 to the Criminal Code, which it considered to be a “vital point” in its conclusion that the applicant would receive a fair trial. The amendments also meant there could be no flagrant denial of the applicant’s right to liberty because, among other reforms, the maximum period before which a detainee had to be brought before a court or public prosecutor had been reduced to twenty-four hours (Article 100(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP). However, the report also noted that it was not possible to determine whether the Public Prosecutor would charge the applicant with new offences, which had been introduced by the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2006 and which would allow for the Public Prosecutor to detain him for fifteen days (renewable for up to two months) for the purposes of investigation. 97. The report also sought to comment on a number of SIAC’s findings in respect of Jordanian law. For instance, SIAC had found that access to a lawyer being neither obligatory nor prohibited and that no lawyers were present during GID interrogations. However, there was an obligation for legal representation before a Public Prosecutor, which could be waived by reasoned decision, for example when there was a need for rapid action to prevent evidence being lost (Article 63(2) of the CCP). The presence of a lawyer was unusual in all questioning by Public Prosecutors. By the same token, although SIAC had made reference to the possibility of incommunicado detention, Article 66(2) of the CCP provided that, any time in which contact with a suspect was restricted, this did not apply to contact with his lawyer. SIAC had also found that, in any retrial, the case file from the first trial would be admitted as evidence and that witnesses would not be recalled for cross-examination; this was incorrect as Article 254 of the CCP only allowed a previous case-file to be used as background, the court could only consider evidence which was led at the trial and the defendant would be able to cross-examine witnesses.