The revelation that undercover Met officers spied on the family of Jean Charles De Menezes after they murdered him, leaves me utterly appalled.
You have to consider this in the context of the lies that the Met assiduously spread about De Menezes – that he entered the tube without buying a ticket, that he vaulted the ticket gates, that he ran away from officers, that he was wearing a bulky jacket.
All of these were lies. In truth the poor man had entered the tube normally and legally, walked calmly and sat down with a free newspaper. He wore a short tight denim jacket. Then totally without any cause or justification from his actions whatsoever, his murderers shot him multiple times in the head. Just because his Brazilian complexion looked a bit Arab.
I can think of no category of lie worse than that told by a murderer against the reputation of their victim.
The police did everything they could to mislead the media, planting lies and encouraging stories they knew to be untrue. Personally I find it extremely suspicious that numerous CCTV cameras were found not to be working, and have little doubt that the police destroyed that evidence.
There can be no other motive for spying on De Menezes’ family than either the hope of gaining information to feed to the media to discredit the man they murdered, or to attempt to pervert the course of justice.
They did not have to worry – their were plenty of others to pervert the course of justice for them, including the DPP and above all, Sir Michael Wright, as disgusting a piece of scum as ever sat on an English bench, who directed the inquest jury that they could not return a verdict of unlawful killing. (I was delighted to find that, when I googled Sir Michael Wright, my article on him came high on the first page. Is that result tailored by Google for me, or is it general?)
The recent revelation that the Met spied on Menezes’ family sparked very little public interest. It should. It is a still more appalling outrage than the Murdoch press hacking Millie Dowler. At least the Murdoch gang had not actually murdered Millie Dowler themselves. The De Menezes family were being spied on by their son’s and brother’s murderers.
I’m speechless.
I thought of the difference between virtue and piety, and saw that virtue is the doing of good, whereas piety is the avoidance of ‘wrong’.
In a world dominated by PC orthodoxy, and quota filling, the society will become ever more pious and less virtuous, simply because it is an easier state to achieve, especially if you have a vigorous ego but little talent to match it.
Giving more power to the State will increase malfeasance, as the talentless displace the virtuous, all the new power must be there to direct the cover-up of the ensuing systematic incompetence.
Now whoa, whoa, just calm down – these revelations merely present themselves as opportune criteria for a nice little bit of promotional CV action to reach the dizzy heights of, what is it now, Asst Commissioner. I think you’ll find that senior ranks have to undergo their ACPO training in shooting dead random people (and usually chucking a few bags of crack in their pocket does the trick) but young Jean stupidly had witnesses which gave the selection panel all the evidence they needed in picking the right candidate.
Sir Hugh Orde – now there’s larks!
Cheers Craig – have a good weekend dude
Your 2008 article is 4th in my Google search. I have not read it before but will do now.
What a terrible tragedy this was for Jean Charles’ family! What can we expect from a country that has enacted 8 anti-terror acts since the turn of the century, mostly targeting Muslims, though of course this young man was just mistaken for a Muslim. Even worse is the Justice and Security Act (2013) which was introduced to protect our secret services’ identities in cases in which Muslims were tortured, or any other cause to which it could be applied. All these acts need serious scrutiny, if not abolition,
That we are all spied on goes without saying. When Facebook or any other networking site asks you to complete your profile it is not for the benefit of your friends.
Google result:
“Craig Murray – Blog Archive – The Disgraceful Sir Michael Wright, A …”
Fourth entry on the first page for me. That’s my first Google search today. My router was off overnight so so it should be my first search from the IP address I was assigned half an hour ago. My browser had no Google cookie to submit.
The thing that intrigued me was the revelation at the inquest that one of the police officers had altered his notes. He removed the line recording Cressida Dick saying Jean Charles de Menezes could ‘run onto tube as not carrying anything’, and she was overruled by an unidentified male in command. Who was that male? He seemed to be ordering the hit even though they knew JCdM was not a threat.
Absolutely and completely disgusting-at the same unsurprising. We have at present an improved variation on Orwell’s dystopian vision. We also now know we are being watched-but for how much of our daily 24/7/?
“Just because his Brazilian…” – I can’t help leaning towards the idea that there is much much more to this assassination, because not one thread of the official narrative makes any sense at all. I think it perfectly reasonable to believe this specific person was murdered (i.e. there is a motive behind his killing)
“There can be no other motive for spying on De Menezes’ family” – Yes there can. To discover if anyone knew if JCdM left an “Insurance policy”.
You forgot to add; “with bare wires sticking out of the jacket”!
Alas the credulity of the middle-class, this is the tip of the iceberg, the much bigger and wider net is hidden in plain sight.
now imagine, what would stories or late court decisions have been if instead of non-muslim and non-arab De Menezes their had been an inncoent muslim of arab origin? Would we still have the truth about this man’s innocence today?
This country is turning into soviet style regime more rapidly. Do we still have time to stop this horrible process? I am in ever more doubt day by day.
JimmyGiro, 9:44 am; that’s an excellent systemic description. I’ve been vaguely thinking something similar for years; thanks for expressing it so clearly.
Craig,
There is something fundamentally wrong.
We could, probably, agree in principle that the state should have the sole right to violence in a democracy. The alternative, that we should have the right to bear arms does not seem to me to be a paticularily valid option. Extreme breakdowns of the afoesaid state as exemptions, obviously.
But, the right of the state to bear arms over us, being the sole supplier of violent solutions appears completely unmoderated.
At what point were we consulted on the extent to which the state would exercise it’s authority without accountability? And it is this latter point, accountability, that is the worry.
It is something more than spin when armed officers are given complete immunity from prosecution when they unload on a suspect. The issue of judgement – the risk they were at themselves, the danger to the public – are invariably biased for the killer rather than the killed.
The Met’s actions in relation to the family of Jean Charles De Menezes is just icing on the cake of a constabulary that reports to the Queen and not to the people. No doubt they employ people to smear victims of their own incompetence. But it is down to us to at least make some prosecutions stick.
I have no idea whatsoever how we can move away from this imapassé.
I understand your reasoning ‘Just Saying’ and we are blessed with a man who risks his life exposes the Establishments atrocious wicked face. It is here on CraigMurray we question the Neo-Con narratives even though it seems we are not allowed and run the risk of being accused as a Putin apologist or conspiracy theorist; a ‘trooffer’ if you will.
The face has an ugly mind that will accuse Russia of a crime even before the poor bodies of MH17 were cold. Keep in mind that Malaysia is an independently minded country that has indicted Bush and Blair for war crimes.
Ukraine backed by the West is butchering its own people while Israel having murdered over 700 civilians mostly women and children in Gaza is deemed innocent. The double standards are barbaric and inhuman.
Simply you are either with us, the enlightened or the NeoCon terrorists who without a doubt from good evidence will murder its own people such as 2001, 2005, with proxies such as ISIS, NATO or al-Qaeda and this ‘cleansing’ IS open-ended, unfolding and extant.
Well said JimmyGiro, Sir Michael Wright in this case taking a leaf out of Pontius Pilate’s book, unctuously washing his (ie the establishment’s) hands for the express purpose of ‘avoiding’ the wrong.
Sub narrative of this case with a Sir Humphery Appleby type scenario:
‘He’s got a safe pair of hands and will do a good
whitewash, ahem I mean job Prime Minister, he’s the ‘right’ man to do it Prime Minister’‘Very droll Humphery’
‘If he gets this right Prime Minister, perhaps he could be useful elsewhere…?’
‘What are you up to Humphery’
‘Nothing Prime Minister’
‘These
fuckups,, I mean misfortunes of our security services really have to be ventilated but have to be handled carefully Humpy, is he really safe?’‘Indeed he is Prime Minister, we were at Oxford together.’
Really sickening that finding. Normally I would never call any judge ‘scum’, especially in court 🙂 but I think Craig can be excused on this occasion
Newspaper reports at the time claimed it was soldiers from the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, not police, who did the shooting. If you Google them you get some interesting stuff. There is definitely something strange about this case, police told the Observer they knew he was not a threat, but still he was taken down, by an SAS unit.
@Tito: Agreed. But one thing is for sure… we aren’t going to change anything by moaning about it.
We didn’t even manage to change our programmed MPs minds by the 2 million march…
However, the MPs that voted against war with Syria brings some cause for comfort. I understand that minds were changed through the sheer volume of constituents posting to constituency offices. POSTING… ie real letters, not using electronic media! We can all do that.
Shameful as is DRIP
Just out of interest, what was CDM job, his qualifications? Who was his employer or who had he been working for in the previous months?
Your article came 4th on google uk (for several searches using an the Tor anonimity tool).
Lovely picture on twitter as people gather for today’s demonstration:
https://twitter.com/jackieschneider/status/492987074568814592/photo/1
Any guesses how long before the BBC are shamed into reporting what is happening today in central London? They wouldn’t have relented last week if it wasn’t for peoples’ actions via twitter.
CCTV never works when the system is covering their wrondoing.Its a red flag that they are lying.Ian Tomlinson, 7/7, 9/11, etc….
Missing radar MH370….
@LeeJ: George Orwell said it all in his book. Trouble is… 1984 arrived and no sign of Big Brother, so people lost interest. And now, another generation… most haven’t even heard of “1984”!.
Hi Lee,
Could you expand on your theories regarding missing CCTV footage of 9/11 and 7/7?
I’ve heard it said that 9/11 was a hoax and there were in fact no planes. Are you expounding no planes theory” or the hologram version?
Re the Met Police Menezes lies – several of them maintained even up to the end that he acted suspiciously because at Brixton en route he had got off and back on the bus etc.. Brixton Station has been closed early since the evening before including of course all morning on the day of Menezes murder. Police must have known hands down that very very many folk were having to get back on local buses like Menezes. They used these verbals to try and justify his eventual murder even up to the very end. Cressida Dick joined the fit-up too. These are cops who are supposed to have well primed critical intellects. Next up? Tomlinson of course and he got the verbals treatment really big time too.
Tfs
“Just out of interest, what was CDM job, his qualifications? Who was his employer or who had he been working for in the previous months?”
I don’t know but it must have been well paid as be was able to afford cocaine. The cocaine in his system at the time of the shooting might have led to agitated behaviour, arousing suspicions that led to the tragic mistake.
@Anon: Sorry to cut in on this, but the “hoaxers” are probably a smokescreen. Of course there’s no doubt that 9/11 happened. It is what happened afterwards that is so disturbing. If 19 Saudi nationals were identified as responsible, why did the neocons invade Afghanistan? Most likely answer… because they wanted to invade Afghanistan anyway and released information to support their opportunist agenda.
The mm won’t post pictures of the demonstration in London for the same reason – it doesn’t fit the agenda.
@Anon: that cocaine reference show you up as part of the propaganda campaign.