Tony Blair and Home Secretary Charles Clarke are making unprecedented direct attacks against journalists of two liberal newspapers who dared to criticise their piss-poor civil liberties record. I sense a smokescreen being put up – keep the rags busy – and funny how all this blows up, just as news about their biggest offence against civil liberties to date, the Jean-Charles De Menezes state-sponsored murder, comes out.
It seems to me that the biggest civil liberty there is is the right not to be executed without trial by deathsquads of armed paramilitaries acting on state orders.
Bumped over from Wisse Words, with no apologies for nepotism:
Sun 23 Apr 2006
Menezes killers not charged?
THE police officers who shot dead innocent suicide bomb suspect Jean Charles de Menezes at a Tube station last year will not face charges, according to a tabloid newspaper.
There is insufficient evidence of criminal offences in the shooting of the 27-year-old Brazilian at Stockwell Station, in south London, on July 22, according to a lawyer reviewing the case for the Crown Prosecution Service.
Mr De Menezes was shot in the head seven times by officers who mistook him for a suicide bomber in the wake of last July’s London bombings.
The lawyer quoted in The Sun said: “Mistakes were made but they do not amount to criminal misconduct.
“The firearms officers were acting under orders. Those in charge of surveillance believed he was a suspect.
“There is no realistic prospect that they will be prosecuted.”
In other news, it seems that Brian Paddick a Scotland Yard deputy assistant commissioner is being kicked off the force, for the crime of testifying against Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner:
Friends of Paddick said he had been offered the option of going on “gardening leave” for the next six months. This would last until November, when he has the option of retiring with a full police pension after 30 years? service.
If agreed, the deal would mean Paddick spending half a year being paid 52,000 — half his estimated 104,000 annual salary — for doing nothing.
The Met has offered Paddick the alternative of taking a posting involving a “less visible position” that would mean him rarely visiting Scotland Yard. Colleagues say Paddick, who was on holiday last week, is now considering his options.
[…]
Earlier this year Paddick gave investigators from the Independent Police Complaints Commission a signed statement that appeared to contradict Blair’s account of the aftermath of the shooting.
Paddick testified that Moir Stewart, a key member of Blair’s private office, had been told just six hours after the shooting that police might have killed an innocent man.
Blair has maintained that the first he and his advisers knew of the error was 24 hours after the shooting.
It seems the coverup is in full effect. And it seems nobody is paying attention anymore, as I haven’t seen either story mention on the usual blogs. Will the Metropolitan Police really get away with another murder?
Read more about: Jean Charles de Menezes, Menezes Killing, Menezes coverup, Brian Paddick, Metropolitan police, Ian Blair
Posted by Martin Wisse at 10:32AM PDT [ Permalink] End of post.
