Workers Revolutionary Party - CHAGOS ISLANDERS GO TO COURT

The News Line: News Friday, 29 September 2006 CHAGOS ISLANDERS GO TO COURT

Chagos Islanders outside the Horsham County Court on Wednesday morning

THE case against the Chagos islanders was adjourned for 14 days on Wednesday.

They are being prosecuted for their campaign in Crawley for their right to return to the Indian ocean islands from which they were evicted by the Wilson government.

They were replaced by the giant US imperialist war base of Diego Garcia.

Opening for the defence, Azeem Sutterwala, the barrister for the islanders, said that they were fighting the action brought by West Sussex County Council on the grounds of article 13 of the Human Rights Act; namely their right to demonstrate peacefully.

Sutterwala asked for a 28 day adjournment in order to submit a proper defence case to the court in order to do proper justice to the islanders’ cause.

The law firm representing the islanders, Irwin Mitchell, had taken on the case less than 24 hours before it was heard in court!

District Court judge Edwards found for the claimant, and issued a 14 day adjournment. However, judge Edwards ordered the shortened adjournment following a bizarre twist in proceedings.

Several islanders spoke up and Ricauld told the judge that the islanders wanted to return home. ‘We want our security. Ours was sacrificed for the security of the world’, he said, he said in an emotional address to the court.

Sutterwala said that they were considering an appeal against the 14-day adjournment.

The islanders go back to Horsham County Court in Sussex on 16th October at 10.30am.