UK: Iraq human rights lawyer Phil Shiner declared bankrupt

March 17, 2017

Struck-off solicitor’s insolvency declaration will deprive MoD of opportunity to recover multimillion-pound sum it seeks

The campaigning human rights lawyer Phil Shiner, who was struck off as a solicitor for pursuing fictitious Iraqi compensation claims against the Ministry of Defence, has been declared bankrupt.

The Insolvency Service website states the 60-year-old, who ran the firm Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) in Birmingham, was made bankrupt on Tuesday.

The declaration of insolvency will deprive the MoD of an opportunity to recover any of the millions of pounds it maintains it is entitled to claim from Shiner.

The former solicitor could not afford to retain lawyers to represent him at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in London last month. He did not attend and was not represented at the hearing. He also told the tribunal that he was unwell.

Shiner was found guilty of multiple professional misconduct charges, including dishonesty and lack of integrity in bringing murder and torture claims in relation to the “Battle of Danny Boy” near Amara in 2004.

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https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/mar/17/iraq-war-crimes-lawyer-phil-shiner-declared-bankrupt

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2768701/phil-shiner-iraq-war-tank-chaser-lawyer-bankrupt/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/18/phil-shiner-uk-police-confirm-criminal-investigation-into-iraq-human-rights-lawyer

Iraq/USA: IRAQI-AMERICAN LAWYER DETAILS HER DETENTION AT U.S. BORDER IN MICHIGAN

February 2, 2017

In her job as an immigration attorney, Farah Al-khersan has worked to reunite families and fight deportation hearings. On Friday night, she found herself in a similar position to some of her clients, when she and her husband were detained at the U.S. border hours after President Donald Trump signed a far-reaching immigration executive order.

Al-khersan, 26, is an American-Iraqi citizen. Her husband, Osama Fadel, 28, is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and a dual Canadian-Iraqi citizen. On Friday night, the couple drove to Canada from their West Bloomfield, Michigan, to visit Fadel’s family, who live in Sarnia, minutes beyond the U.S.-Canada border. They planned to stay the night, but Al-khersan kept getting messages and alerts from other attorneys and organizations she’d worked with about the executive order.

“I knew the order had come out, but I didn’t think that my husband would be affected by it,” says Al-khersan. Both Al-khersan and Fadel were born in Iraq, but left with their families in the early 1990s. Fadel’s family bounced from Libya to Canada, while Al-khersan’s family first went to New Zealand before settling in the U.S.

They left for the U.S. at 11 p.m. on Friday in order to beat the inevitable crowds that would have amassed by the morning. Half an hour later, they were stopped at the Port Huron crossing at the U.S.-Canada border and held for the next four hours, just 70 miles from home.

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http://europe.newsweek.com/iraqi-american-lawyer-detained-us-canada-border-trump-executive-order-551731