Jean Charles de Menezes – Page 4

Join the police. Kill with impunity

Published on May 15, 2007

Jean Charles de Menezes, murdered

That seems to be the message behind the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s decision not to prosecute 11 officers involved in the Menezes murder. Can’t say that this decision comes as a great surprise: from the very first the Metropolitan Police and its political masters did its best to sweep its “mistake” under the carpet, in the process slandering an innocent man. It was clear all along that nothing would ever happen to the people who helped kill Jean Charles de Menezes. Like I said last year, the police in Britain can get away with murder.

Not just the police either. The failure to punish anybody for the murder of Jean Charles, or even to take responsibility for his death, is part of a broader pattern of evasion of duty in Blair’s Britain. Blair’s government has been an unmitigated failure with everything they’ve touched, where they’ve not been criminal: just in the last week there have been the election cockups in Scotland, the revelation that MI5 had the July 7 bombers but let them go and only today there was the story that the government’s latest miracle IT system, the socalled medical training application service was rubbish and going to be scrapped. Yet few if any government ministers have had to face the consequences of such failures. At worst, it seems, they are banished to the shadows for a bit before recycled back into new jobs to fuck up, like Mandelson or Blunkett.

Police get away with murder

Published on July 17, 2006

Last year, Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered by Metropolitian police officers. It took the Crown Prosecution Service more then a year to decide, surprise, surprise, not to prosecute his murderers:

I have now completed my review into the circumstances surrounding the death of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Following the investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, their report and supporting evidence was sent to me.

I asked them to carry out some additional enquiries, which they have done, and I am now satisfied that I have sufficient evidence to reach a decision in this matter.

The offences I considered included murder, manslaughter, forgery, and breaches of health and safety legislation.

All cases are considered in accordance with the principles in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, which states that before a prosecution can commence, there must be a realistic prospect of conviction.

If there is not sufficient evidence then a case cannot proceed, no matter how important or serious it may be.

After the most careful consideration I have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction against any individual police officer.

But I am satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to prosecute the Office of Commissioner of Police for an offence under sections 3 and 33 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 of failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005.

It seems The Sun was right then, when it said the Menezes killers would not be charged. This despite all the evidence that Menezes was never a threat, that the police officers in question knew this and that they tried their best to cover their murder up. Despite all that, these murderers not only walk away without charges, but they can resume their career of killing innocent civilians in the name of “combatting terrorism”.

Disgusting.

Menezes killers not charged?

Published on April 23, 2006

Or so The Sun alleges:

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?

Inquiry in the Menezes murder is finished

Published on January 18, 2006

Menezes lying in the carriage after his murder

The BBC reports that the “Independent” Police Complaints Commission has finished its inquiry into the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician mistaken for a terrorist and murdered by gung-ho Metropolitan police officers, though of course they don’t call it a murder. That it was murder proves the eyewitness report quoted by the BBC:

The BBC has obtained an eyewitness statement, given to the IPCC, which described how anti-terror
officers shot at Mr Menezes 11 times.

The statement read: “The shots were evenly spaced, with about three seconds between the shots
for the first few shots.

“Then a gap of a little longer. Then the shots were evenly spaced again.”

Mr Menezes, an electrician from Gonzaga in south-eastern Brazil, was hit seven times in the head.

On the six o’clock news, it was said that if prosecutions of the police officers were started, most if not all Metropolitan gun officers would refuse to carry them any longer, once more confirmed that the police think themselves above the law. Here’s hoping the prosecution services will not given in to this common blackmail.

Earlier posts about the murder of Menezes:

Suspicious behaviour: if he was Brazilian he would be dead by now

Published on September 26, 2005

PC plod hasn’t learned much from the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes it seems, as the experiences of David Mery, arrested for suspicious behaviour on the Underground, shows:

7.21 pm: I enter Southwark tube station, passing uniformed police by the entrance, and more police beyond the gate. I walk down to the platform, peering down at the steps as, thanks to a small eye infection, I’m wearing specs instead of my usual contact lenses. The next train is scheduled to arrive in a few minutes. As other people drift on to the platform, I sit down against the wall with my rucksack still on my back. I check for messages on my phone, then take out a printout of an article about Wikipedia from inside my jacket and begin to read.

The train enters the station. Uniformed police officers appear on the platform and surround me. They must immediately notice my French accent, still strong after living more than 12 years in London.

They handcuff me, hands behind my back, and take my rucksack out of my sight. They explain that this is for my safety, and that they are acting under the authority of the Terrorism Act. I am told that I am being stopped and searched because:

they found my behaviour suspicious from direct observation and then from watching me on the CCTV system;

I went into the station without looking at the police officers at the entrance or by the gates;

two other men entered the station at about the same time as me;

I am wearing a jacket “too warm for the season”;

I am carrying a bulky rucksack, and kept my rucksack with me at all times;

I looked at people coming on the platform;

I played with my phone and then took a paper from inside my jacket.

This is not a list of suspicious behaviour, this is a list of pretexts under which anybody can be arrested. In fact, one of those criteria, keeping a “bulky rucksack” with you at all times is in direct conflict with what every Londoner has been taught for over twenty years, to always keep your luggage with you in case it is mistaken for an IRA bomb! If you can be arrested for that, you can be arrested for anything and any pretence at living in a free society is gone.

What is worse, as the article makes clear, this whole incident will be kept in police databases, in the UK and abroad for an unknown period of time, marking Mery as a suspicious character –in other words this wrongful arrest will in itself make it much more likely Mery will be arrested again! No smoke without a fire after all and if the police stopped you once, they must have had a good reason…