I was told by a member of the Metropolitan Police Operation Lydd team that they believe there are grounds to prosecute Jack Straw, but that the Crown Prosecution Service will bury it. That was over two years ago when I gave my own sworn evidence to the investigation.
That cover-up by the CPS is now underway – and it is extremely unsubtle. The mainstream media barely reported that the first file has been passed to the CPS on Operation Lydd. You would think that a massive police investigation into criminal activity by Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen, among others, would merit more of a splash, but not in our corporate controlled media. The timing was auspicious because, in the parallel civil case, the Court of Appeal has rejected the Government’s defence of “National Security” to prevent the case from even being heard. This after Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen arranged the kidnap and deportation to torture in Libya of Mr Belhadj, his pregnant wife and children – only one of hundreds of such crimes in which the British state was deeply involved.
Infamously, the British Embassy in Washington had been lobbying the US authorities relentlessly to prevent the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on extraordinary rendition, specifically on the grounds that this would weaken Jack Straw’s defence. That defence rests on the grounds that details of kidnap and torture would annoy the United States and thus damage Britain’s security interests. As a blanket license for state involvement in torture, it only takes a second’s thought to realise how astonishingly dangerous that doctrine is. The High Court swallowed it. Thank God, the Court of Appeal did not.
So the Courts having ruled against Jack Straw, there are now two lines of defence between Straw and Sir Mark Allen, and a long spell in the pokey. The first is that the Government is appealing to the Supreme Court in London to have the case kicked out once again on “National Security” grounds. The second line of defence is the Crown Prosecution Service.
I can give you very substantial evidence that a cover-up is in progress within the CPS. Astonishingly the Lydd file has been passed within the CPS not to the serious crime division, but to the Counter-Terrorism Division. Yet terrorism is not the alleged crime here. The crimes are Gross Misconduct in Public Office, Conspiracy to Torture, Conspiracy to Kidnap and Abduct. We might relate them rhetorically to terrorism, but they are not that legally.
The incredible truth is that the file has been passed not to the Division which deals with the crimes allegedly committed by the perpetrators, Messrs Straw, Allen et al. It has rather been passed to the Divison which deals with the crime falsely alleged against the VICTIM of the case, Mr Belhadj. That simple fact tells you all you need to know about the attitude of the CPS to Operation Lydd.
In fact, the Counter-Terrorism Division of CPS works on a daily basis with public servants and security service functionaries who are themselves deeply implicated in the crimes being uncovered by Operation Lydd. A cover-up is certain.
The British Establishment really does stink.
Footnote: I phoned the CPS Press Office to give them a chance to respond. I got through to a spokesperson and left details and my number. They have not come back to me.
As above, so below; a corrupt attitude pervades the system from top to bottom – if you criticise the system that is meant to serve you, the system attacks you to protect itself – much like it attacked Moazzam Begg:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/oct/30/sussex-police-dossier-bereaved-academic
BAILII case notes:
Belhadj & Others v the Security Service, SIS, GCHQ, Home Office and FCO [2014] UKIPTrib 13_132-9H (07 February 2014)
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKIPTrib/2014/13_132-9H.html&query=Belhadj&method=boolean
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2014/11/03/ukraine-dips-into-dwindling-reserves-to-pay-gazprom/
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/energy/eu-unblocks-unprecedented-levels-cash-secure-gas-ukraine-309653
‘Nuff said. Strings?
So where from 1986-2000?
That’s private, Mary. 🙂
His reticence concerning his former employment is total. Which, with his effortless rise through security admin, suggests that his private employment was just the day job. Wadham College (current Warden, Lord Macdonald) is a prime recruiting ground, and a Classics degree does not suggest someone who actually gets his hands dirty.
Chutzpah. Straw still takes time out to give a lecture.
The title of his lecture was ‘Has British perfidy come back to bite us? Britain and the Middle East in this century and the last’.
Mr Gray said: “The setting was spectacular, the music from Knox Academy’s jazz band was superb, and several hundred people heard Jack Straw speak on Britain’s engagement in the Middle East, taking a broad historical view back to the First World War.
“He also answered questions, including a number on more recent events in Iraq in which of course he had a key role as Foreign Secretary. “He answered these with disarming clarity, courtesy and a refreshing willingness to admit to mistakes with hindsight.” ‘
http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/roundup/articles/2014/11/02/514330-jack-straw-gives-jp-mackintosh-lecture/#sthash.nnqKj3yQ.dpuf
Elsewhere –
No state immunity for Jack Straw, MI5 and MI6 in rendition case
Channel 4 News (blog)-Oct 30, 2014
The Court of Appeal ruled neither the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw nor the former Mi6 senior officer Sir Mark Allen could be covered by …
MP Jack Straw hails plan to replace cautions with suspended …
Lancashire Telegraph-22 hours ago
AN EAST Lancashire MP has welcomed plans to scrap police cautions and replace them with a system of suspended prosecutions. Jack Straw …
Senior judges give Libyan permission to sue Jack Straw and …
Lancashire Telegraph-Nov 2, 2014
SENIOR judges have given a Libyan permission to sue Jack Straw and the government over claims he was illegally sent to his home country and tortured.
Wait for him to go at the end of this parliamentary session. They will be making speeches of praise for the b……
“With the release of the new Gary Webb film “Kill The Messenger” and the sudden renewed interest in what goes on in that dark underbelly of the US Empire — drug running, money laundering, death squads, assassinations of lives and of reputations — I’m reminded of the incredible life and death of Nicholas Deak, the CIA’s Cold War banker hailed in Time magazine as “the James Bond of the world of money” until the mid-1980s, when his global finance empire was destroyed by Reagan Administration accusations of large-scale Latin American drug money laundering……snip
Nicholas Deak’s end came fast. Exactly thirty years ago, in 1984, his global financial empire, Deak-Perera, was accused by the Reagan Administration of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars of Colombian drug cartel cash.
Nicholas Deak should’ve been the least likely target for a Reagan Administration takedown over cocaine money laundering, and not only because the same Reagan Administration was busy aiding and abetting the CIA’s mercenary army, the Contras, as they moved cocaine into the US, and illegal weapons into their Honduras bases. What made targeting Deak all the stranger was that one of Deak’s closest longtime friends, William Casey, was head of Reagan’s CIA at that time. And as Gary Webb’s reporting (and Robert Parry’s exposés before and after Webb) have shown, Casey’s CIA was at that very same time aiding and protecting the Contras’ cocaine-running operation.’
http://pando.com/2014/10/26/the-biggest-cia-drug-money-scandal-you-never-read/
“Try to think of the masons as a golf club with extra balls. I guarantee more council contracts are stitched up over a round of golf than a session of whatever masons do. Kipling ( who was one) writes discreetly but interestingly on what they get up to, btw.”
Except that golf clubs are not secret. Someone who holds public office has no problems declaring they belong to a golf club or who the other members of that club are.
The people have a right to know if their senior officials, sheriffs, judges and arbiters are members of a secret society and who the other members are.
John Goss
[JG]: “ Were he still alive Stephen Knight, who wrote The Brotherhood, would not agree with you. Neither would Walton Hannah, who wrote Darkness Visible. The first comes at the problem from a secular point of view. The second from a religious point of view.”
[JSD]: I just set out on this blog the obligations of a Freemason. I don’t particularly care whether you believe me or not; nor do I care whether Stephen Knight, whom I know all about, or Walton Hannah, whoever he is, agrees with me or not.
[JG]: “The higher up the masonic cult one gets the more satanic it becomes. Take the jewel of a Chaplain which once had Holy Bible written inside the triangle but at the same time the Grand Chaplain’s jewel had an open book with nothing written in it. The United Grand Lodge of England has two, let’s call them angels, stood either side of the ark of the covenant which sits on top of a coat of arms. The inside wings of the ‘angels’ point towards the sky and to all intents and purposes their upper bodies are human. But from the thighs down they resemble the cloven legs of goats, like Pan, fauns and satyrs.”
[JSD]: Freemasons, as Freemasons, are explicitly prohibited from discussing either religion or politics with each other. That is made very clear to all potential candidates. The reason for it is to avoid strife and disharmony among members.
[JG]: “Of course it would depend on whether you held religious beliefs or not as to whether you would be offended by this, but the whole masonic cult is anti-Christian and sets up, Hiram Abiff, a stonemason at the Temple of Solomon, as its Christ figure.”
[JSD]: No it isn’t, and no, it doesn’t.
[JG]: “A friend, dead now, once told me how as a boy he had gone along to a lodge, not when there was a meeting, with someone from his family and wanted to go into the lodge. “Mind the goat doesn’t get you” was the sentence used to put him off.”
[JSD]: So what? As far as I am aware, there are no goats present at meetings of Masons. Perhaps it was a jest.
Kind regards,
John
The people have a right to know if their senior officials, sheriffs, judges and arbiters are members of a secret society and who the other members are.
Disclosure would mean that the society is no longer secret. So you’re saying secret societies should be illegal? Or what? What additional edge does Joe Soap, Contractor get by knowing Cllr. Maximus Doe in private (that word again) rather than by playing golf with him?
I mean, on the one hand, sure. On the other hand, the masons may be secret but they are very far from clandestine, and you can often spot them because they are wearing masonic cufflinks and hang about with known masons. In Oban, they all march through the town once a year, and you can see who they are, with the added bonus of seeing some policemen whose appearance on the beat would be a miracle. Actually, the local Masons there are more widely recognised than the golfers…
It’s quite possible Putin is taking advantage of the cease-fire and Kiev is focusing more on keeping their own lid on local concerns.
https://translate.google.pl/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.tvn24.pl/grozne-doniesienia-z-donbasu-iskandery-przy-granicy-rosjanie-przejmuja-front,484800,s.html&edit-text=
The calm before the storm?
All of this information is confirmed by visible for a few days the process of strengthening the rebel forces and the Russian in the Donbas. Earlier reports of the formation of the four major groups of shock counting up to 25 thousand. people and more than 100 tanks.
The appearance of S-300 systems and means of air reconnaissance suggests that the Russians in case of resumption of regular battles assume that it comes to air combat. Repainting military equipment in the Ukrainian colors can mean the plans to carry out any provocation. Limiting contact with the outside world of Russian soldiers is also significant. It has a distinctive restrict and hinder the Ukrainian side Kyiv observing and predicting enemy movements.
I had to laugh after reading this, real life is far more surreal, than fiction.
________________________________
ROYAL Bank of Scotland has been chosen to provide advice to police on financial crime, just days after its own bill to settle regulatory investigations into past misconduct topped £1 billion.
RBS, which is 80% owned by the taxpayer, is to provide help to City of London Police.
Rescued during the financial crisis with a £46b taxpayer bailout that remains outstanding, it last week set aside £400m to settle claims of foreign exchange market rigging.
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/scandal-banks-advice-187105n.25771386
Labour MP John Mann of the Treasury Select Committee, said: “The idea that they could be giving advice is nonsense.”
And despite being owned by the people their crimes continue
http://www.ianfraser.org/the-financial-terrorism-of-royal-bank-of-scotland/
Theresa May yesterday said sorry over the child sex abuse inquiry debacle and admitted the Government may have to look abroad for its third chairman.
The Home Secretary insisted the resignation of Fiona Woolf last week would not derail the inquiry, which will meet for the first time a week tomorrow without a chair – four months after it was announced.
Mrs May conceded that the Home Office may now be forced to look overseas for a new chairman.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2818713/May-facing-questions-failure-publish-explosive-report-missing-child-abuse-dossier-handed-Home-Office-1980s.html
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Is the Westminster establishment so mistrusted that an overseas, chairperson has to be appointed, who will it be says I tongue in cheek, Tony Blair? his namesake Tony Abbot? maybe Bill Clinton would woo the complainers, or even Silvio Berlusconi, whoever is appointed will need to have more scruples, than the afore mentioned candidates, the tension is palpable
Whether Fiona Woolf heads it or not, the child abuse inquiry will fail
Bloody Sunday, Profumo, Iraq … public inquiries usually find whatever Whitehall wants them to.
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A surprisingly good article from the Telegraph,yes that’s what I said the Telegraph. On why no one will be held to account on the Child Sex Abuse Inquiry.
by Andrew Gilligan.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11205648/Whether-Fiona-Woolf-heads-it-or-not-the-child-abuse-inquiry-will-fail.html
Starting from this week the government will send out 24 million letters explaining how your tax money is spent. There’s one big problem with what they’re telling you.
You’d think a nurse’s pension would be counted as a pension, not as “welfare”.
But in new tax summaries that will be sent out to 24 million homes by George Osborne, he has done a tricksy re-definition of the word “welfare” that makes the benefits bill look a lot bigger than it actually is.
______________________________________
George Osborne, twisting the figures to make the welfare bill seem larger than it really is. This will turn public opinion against the sick disabled and poor, and allow Osborne to punish them harder than ever before.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/revealed-government-use-new-tax-4557912#rlabs=10
@Ba’al Zevul: I see your point, but golf clubs do not have codes of conduct, whereby members are expected to help out each other while not at the club. Furthermore, they are not expected to do favours for members of other golf clubs altogether. That is not the formal arrangement of all golf club members. Golf clubs are also open to the public (more or less). You wouldn’t generally expect golf club members to get off criminal offences with a nod and a wink, just by dint of their membership. And so on.
TUNIS – French philosopher Bernard Henri Levy was expelled from Tunisia Saturday night only 24 hours after his arrival in the country.
___________________________________
That must be some kind of record for the Godfather of civil war, in the Arab World.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=68744
Metropolitan Police uses secret surveillance technology to follow suspects and gather data from their mobile phones, The Times reports. The gathering is done to all active mobiles within a certain range – including those belonging to innocent people.
The technology, called an IMSI catcher, also allows for phone calls to be intercepted and listened to. Text messages and emails can also be collected and read. Additionally, it can block phone signals in a specific area.
But it’s not just the suspect’s phone which is taken under control by the technology; all active mobile phones in the area are. Sources in the Metropolitan Police told The Times that the data of innocent people may also be stored in archives.
“We only used them when we had no idea who our target was in contact with. We’d sit outside and pick up everything. To be honest, I was always uncomfortable about them because you are looking at everyone’s information,” the source said.
_______________________________________
So if you happen to be standing next to Craig (when he’s under surveillance) and you’re on the phone, your conversation will be recorded, by a third party.
http://rt.com/uk/201691-britain-mobile-phone-snooping/
“Disclosure would mean that the society is no longer secret. So you’re saying secret societies should be illegal? Or what?”
I’m saying that public officials should have to declare all societies they belong to secret or not.
It’s not unreasonable is it? When someone was just stopped from being Chair of an inquiry because they once had dinner with a politician it’s not unreasonable to expect judges to say what societies they belong to and who the other members are is it?
These are the members of the CPS Board.
http://www.cps.gov.uk/your_cps/our_organisation/the_cps_board.html
“Theresa May yesterday said sorry over the child sex abuse inquiry debacle and admitted the Government may have to look abroad for its third chairman.
….
Mrs May conceded that the Home Office may now be forced to look overseas for a new chairman. ”
____________________-
Surely no need for that with such a wealth of talent within these shores?
It’s clear that the new Chairperson must possess an inquiring, sceptical mind, be free of all unhealthy obsessions and not belong to any establishment – perhaps even be an avowed enemy of all establishments.
Several of the regulars on here tick the above boxes.
Given that it would be advantageous if the new Chairperson had legal experience, I hereby nominate…..Mr Doug Scorgie*!
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(*He’s a lawyer – or so he once told us.)
Fred opines
“..it’s not unreasonable to expect judges to say what societies they belong to and who the other members are is it?”
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It’s very unreasonable, Fred.
As far as I’m aware, belonging to the Masons is not illegal (much as some on here would clearly like it to be). Why, therefore, should judges have to declare that they are Masons any more than they should have to declare membership of their local Philatelic Society, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or a Friendly Society….or even the Scottish Honorable Society of Sheep Shearers (or Shaggers)?
Perhaps Fred would also like them to state whether they vote or not, for which political party they vote, which religion (if any) they adhere to, whether they are straight or gay or, indeed, whether they have a favorite position when they indulge in sexual congress.
And now stop being a chump, Fred*.
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(*Fred has frequently, on this blog, accused SNP members and Yessers of behaving like Nazis. Perhaps he might usefully recall that, along with Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, the Nazis were not very fond of Masons either…)
Another “John Goss moment” at 09h14 – from the Master himself:
“Appointments are made on the basis of getting the job done much more than whether a person has the ability to get the job done.”
_________________
If the job is done, would that not appear to indicate that the person selected had the ability to get it done?
Good Lord, Habbabkuk – we were all worried about where you’d got to!
That’s kind of you, Glenn! I’m fine and yes, I was told that some regulars were apparently missing their regular thrashings! 🙂
Nothing to say on The Racist Concept of Israel presumably?
Oh Ba’aal at 10.26 – may your leathers (do hope they’re red) remain forever waterproof. xxx
Sky’s Sam Kiley tells Hannigan a thing or two.
http://news.sky.com/story/1366544/gchq-shouldnt-have-unfettered-access-to-data
Can you imagine any of the BiBiCee stooges like Corera, Gardner or Simpson saying something similar?
Ref Simpson, this thread on Medialens (Simpson is the subject of the alert) will cause a few wry smiles.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1415031488.html
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2014/779-a-match-made-in-heaven-president-obama-and-the-bbc-s-john-simpson.html
MPs accused of abusing the unreformed expenses system will escape official investigation after the House of Commons authorities destroyed all record of their claims, the Telegraph can reveal.
John Bercow, the Speaker, faces accusations he has presided over a fresh cover-up of MPs’ expenses after tens of thousands of pieces of paperwork relating to claims made before 2010 under the scandal-hit regime were shredded.
Members of the public who have written to Kathryn Hudson, the standards watchdog, to raise concerns about their MP’s claims have been told there can be no investigation due to lack of evidence.
Members of the public who have written to Kathryn Hudson, the standards watchdog, to raise concerns about their MP’s claims have been told there can be no investigation due to lack of evidence.
Under the House of Commons’ “Authorised Records Disposal Practice”, which is overseen by Mr Bercow’s committee, records of MPs’ expenses claims are destroyed after three years. The move is necessary to comply with data protection laws, a Commons spokesman said.
However, under that same set of guidelines, the pay, discipline and sickness records of Commons staff are kept until their 100th birthday. Health and safety records are kept for up to 40 years, while thousands of other classes of official documents on the day-to-day running of the House are stored indefinitely in the Parliamentary Archive.
_____________________________________________
How convenient, that expenses records are destroyed, but others are rigidly retained for up to 100 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/11204405/MPs-to-escape-expenses-investigations-after-paperwork-destroyed-by-Parliament.html
“Nothing to say on The Racist Concept of Israel presumably?”
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You are wrong, Mary – as so often.
Craig’s post, which I’ve read rather quickly just now, is a curious amalgam of giving great prominence to, and drawing an unjustified general conclusion from, something one (repeat, one) minister said, and a repeat of all the old saws about Israel – racist, apartheid, etc, etc – without of course providing any concrete examples or sourcing; we have, apparently, just to take Craig’s word for it when he accuses Israel of practising apartheid.
I was not impressed with this attempt and can only imagine that the post was designed to rally the troops.
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La vita è bella, life is good!