On BBC Radio 4 at 9pm tomorrow Friday 3 August, the BBC is broadcasting a production of Robin Soans’ Life After Scandal. I feature as a character in this piece of verbatim theatre, much as I did in Soans’ excellent Talking to Terrorists, though presumably this new play focuses somewhat on what Nadira and I did since.
For those not in the UK, or in reach of a radio, I believe you should be able to listen on BBC Radio 4 live on the internet.
Where, exactly, might he have been concealing a bomb and have been in imminent danger of detonating it? Remember both 7 July and 21 July bombs were bulky productions contained in large backpacks.
I know that headline comes in the “Old news” category, but for once it’s official. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has ruled that the public were “Misled” over the death of Jean Charles De Menezes, the innocent Brazilian executed on the London Underground.
The lies which the Metropolitan Police told – from Sir Ian Blair down – in the ensuing cover-up were inexcusable.
Catalogue of Lies
– The Met maintained that De Menezes was a terrorist for 24 hours after they knew he was innocent.
The Met then proceeded to tell a series of lies about De Menezes behaviour to justify his killing. They said he had:
– Run into the tube station
– Vaulted the ticket barrier
– Raced through the subway and dashed onto the train
– Been wearing a bulky jacket from which wires protruded
These were 100% lie. In fact De Menezes had
– Picked up a newspaper in the station
– Used a ticket in the normal way
– Walked calmly throgu the station
– Been wearing tight clothing with no wires
These lies by the Met are inexcusable. In fact the IPCC were unable to get to grips with much else for lack of evidence – the cover-up went much deeper. Especially
– The CCTV footage of De Menezes throughout the station and at the shooting got “Lost” or corrupted
The IPCC named only Andy Hayman, the Head of counter-terrorist operations at the Met, as guilty of these lies. But we all know it went both higher and deeper. In fact:
– Police chiefs ensured the removal of criticism of more senior officers by the Police Federation taking out legal cases against the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
In any real democracy this scandal would cause not just major resignations amongst senior police, but a government to fall. Unfortunately we are no longer much of a democracy. News reports are emphasising that the shooting was “understandable” as it happened the day after the attempted July 21 bombings. In a classic piece of news management, the immediately preceding news item is that a man has today been charged with “Witholding Information” about the 21 July bombings.
Two years after the event, the police arrested him two days ago, and now charge him on the day that the IPCC report came out. Both those timings were within the sole remit of the police. Anyone who believes the timing is coincidental is so naive as to be certifiable.
Given the catalogue of lies they told in the De Menezes case, I am not prepared to believe the police version of what happens in any “Terrorist” incident without other verification. That goes for the recent London alleged car bomb too. Just like Tony Blair and WMD, the same applies to Ian Blair and Andy Hayman:
– Never take the word of a proven lying bastard.
This blog has won second prize in the Witangemot political blog awards, in the human rights/civil liberties category.
http://www.toque.co.uk/consult/results/Winners_Enclosure.pdf
As W S Gilbert once said, modified rapture. Modified because I have never heard of Witangemot, because we only came second, and because there are severe problems with some of their ideas. The ultra-right Harry’s Place blog, possibly the nastiest authoritarian site on the web (and I do include the BNP) astonishingly comes second in the “Left Wing Blogs”. How did that happen?
From ACLU
Two additional victims of the United States government’s unlawful ‘extraordinary rendition’ program joined a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company. The ACLU charges in its amended complaint that Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA enabling the clandestine transportation of Bisher al-Rawi and Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah to secret overseas locations where they were subjected to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Full press statement can be found here