The Nether-World

Letting The Iraqi Employees Die

2007-11-29T04:35:00.000Z

Since the woefully inadequate non-solution to the problem of granting asylum in the UK to Iraqi employees of the British armed forces and diplomatic services proposed by David Miliband (explained here), things have seemed pretty quiet on the issue. However, the problem has not gone away as the Government has no doubt hoped it would. Dan Hardie has continued to work tirelessly to get a fair deal for these people who have risked their lives and those of their families to help improve things in their country. Whatever our views on the invasion and occupation of Iraq may be (and I've always been completely against it) we have a clear duty to protect those who have helped us, to abandon them is dishonourable and an unacceptable betrayal which will undoubtedly affect future missions where we rely on the local population to help.

The situation for the Iraqi employees has become so desperate that some of these people are contacting Dan directly begging him for help. Dan has been told by some Labour MPs that David Miliband doesn't regard the matter as urgent. Miliband is dead wrong on this, the situation is very urgent indeed, so once again it is up to us to help him to realise this. I'll let Dan explain (I'm reproducing his post in full):

Letting them die
I've had emails from three people who claim to be - and who almost certainly are- Iraqi former employees of the British Government. All three say that they and their former colleagues are still at risk of death for their 'collaboration'.
We'll call the first man Employee One. He worked for the British for three years: 'I started in the beginning of the war with Commandos (in 30 of March 2003) then continued with 23 Pioneer Regt, and in 08 / 07 / 2003 I have joined the Labour Support Unit (LSU)'. His British friends knew him as Chris. The British Government has announced that he can apply for help if he can transport himself to the British base outside Basra, or to the Embassies in Syria or Jordan. It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that there might be problems with this. I can email and telephone this man: so can any Foreign Office official. It should not be impossible to verify his story and then send him the funds he needs to get to a less unsafe Arab country. But that is not happening.
Here's an email exchange we had the other day. My questions are in italics.
Are you still in Iraq?

'Yes, I'm still hidden in somewhere in the hell of Basra.'
Is there any reason you cannot travel to the British Army base at Basra Airbase to ask for asylum?
'Of course, we cannot travel to BIA (Basra International Airbase) due to the militia keep watched all the ways to BIA and they got their own fake check points there although, we claimed for asylum through the internet (we sent our application to the claim office at BIA). But we afraid that the British are going to take a long time to process our claims also we are very worried if they will offer just some money instead of asylum, please sir inform all the British people that we looking for asylum and just the asylum will save our lives, also we can't travel to Syria anymore to claim for asylum there as the Syrian government issued new conditions for Iraqis who want to travel to their country.'
Can you tell me how and when the militias threatened you?
'In 2006 I have threatened by militia that hated me because I work and help coalition forces in Iraq, I told my bosses about that but they said we can't do anything for you because we have nothing to do with civilian and we don't have any army rules or orders to help you, then I continued my daily work with British army, few days later the militia attacked my house trying to catch me but I was at the work at that time, they beaten my family and told them: we want your son or we will kill all of you!!!!
'Since that day I decided to leave my job and change my home place but until this moment the militia trying to find and kill me, I'm always changing my place trying to hidden from them, they know that I left my job but they don't care, they just want to kill me they called me collaborator and traitor and they asked everybody know me about my place, they told them: anyone know anything about (name) he should tell us immediately and also they said: we will never give up until we catch (name). They work for ministry of interior so they controlled most of government departments and they work under that cover.'
Do you have any family members who are also threatened by militias or who depend on you? If so, how many of them are there and how old are they?
'Of course, my family depends on me especially in the finance side as I'm the older son between seven sons and daughters they got, on other hand my parents cannot working as they are very old.'
Employee Two is in Syria, and is applying for aid from the British Embassy in Damascus. He can prove that he has worked for the British for over 12 months, after the magic date of 1st January 2005. But he still isn't safe.
He is staying illegally in Syria, having considerably over-run the 15-day visa on which he entered the country. He's been obliged to get forms for asylum or resettlement aid from the Syrian Government security men who guard the British Embassy. He tells me 'If I see any Syrian officer i really get fear , because of my expired visa.' The British Government, which asked us to accept that it was invading Iraq in part because of its horror at the brutality of the Ba'athist dictatorship, is now perfectly happy to leave its own former employees to the mercies of Syrian Ba'athists.
Colleagues of this man are also hiding in Damascus and are even worse off than he is, because they don't meet the perverse and arbitrary time stipulations. He writes: 'I know 4 former interpreters worked less than a year (for the British: DH), but they went to the embassy and they filled the paper with out telling the guards we had worked for less than a year. The Syrian guards have got instructions from the embassy (British Embassy in Damascus: DH), that (they) do not give that form to any interpreter who worked for British less than a year or any former interpreter who worked in 2003 and fled to Syria before 2005.'
Employee Three sent me copies of his Army ID card and photos of him with smiling Scottish soldiers. He worked for the Army in 2003, who then recommended that he work for Erinys- a private security firm which the British Government hired to form an Oil Protection Force. Both when working for the Army and when working for the British Government's proxies, he was identified as a target by the militias. The British Government made him a death squad target.
That same British Government will not be giving him any kind of assistance; not even a small cash handout to help him live elsewhere in the Middle East. It has announced that it will not help any Iraqi whose direct employment ended before the 1st January 2005: that Johnson Beharry was awarded the Victoria Cross for acts of courage in May and June 2004, when the Mahdi Army attacked the British and were fought off with many hundreds of casualties.
You've heard this before, but it's now more important than ever. The last lot of letters and emails got the Government to announce a change in policy: an inadequate change,badly implemented. The next lot of letters and emails will force the Government to announce another change in policy, one that will be properly implemented and will not be based on leaving people to die.
Your MP's address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA.
His or her email address is probably SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk
(e.g. BROWNG@parliament.uk). Please use the talking points below to send an email and a print letter to your MP, and chase them for an answer. And be courteous: an insulted MP will not raise this matter with Ministers, and that will lead to more avoidable deaths. When you get an answer, email me at danhardie.blog@gmail.com and let me know what they said.
I agree that it seems egocentric for me to ask you to put your MP in touch with me: but what alternatives do we have? I am in direct contact with Iraqi employees pleading with me to do something to help them. I cannot help them. Members of Parliament- including David Miliband- need to read what these Iraqis are saying.
Talking points:
On October 9th David Miliband announced that the British Government would assist former employees in Iraq, so long as they had worked for it after 1st January 2005 and for 12 months or more. That abandons several hundred Iraqis who have been targeted for murder because they worked for the British before that date- and in 2004 fighting between the Mahdi Army and the British was at its peak- or because they worked for less than that period, often leaving their jobs at the end of a British battalion's six-month tour. The British Government must help Iraqi employees on the basis of the risk they face, not according to an arbitrary time stipulation. This only affects a few hundred Iraqis, whom we are well able to shelter, and for whom we have a direct moral responsibility.

Even those Iraqi employees who qualify for assistance are not being properly assisted. Iraqis in Basra are not able to apply via the British Army in Basra International Airbase, since it is ringed with militia checkpoints. Iraqi ex-employees in Damascus are being screened by Syrian policemen guarding the British Embassy and delayed by lengthy bureaucratic procedures when they apply for asylum, although many of them are illegally overstaying their Syrian visas and face deportation back to Iraq.
A blogger called Dan Hardie is directly in touch with a number of Iraqi employees via email and phone. He is willing to brief MPs- as concisely as possible- either over the phone or via email. He can be reached at danhardie.blog@gmail.com
Footnote re authenticity: The ISPs confirm that one email was definitely sent from Damascus, the others from satellite networks serving the Middle East including Iraq. I have spoken to two of them on the phone, using Iraqi telephone numbers. (Many thanks to Alex Harrowell and Surreptitious Evil for their work on this.) A Times journalist in the region tells me that 'Employee Two' and 'Employee Three' are certainly authentic: she has been in contact with them herself. The other has sent me scanned copies of his British Army IDs, and photographs of him with smiling soldiers, as well as a lengthy reference from Erinys. He either is who he says he is, or has stolen the documents of the man he is claiming to be: and given that he names soldiers who know him, and will have to turn up in person and be photographed to claim asylum at a British Embassy, he would have no chance of perpetrating a successful fraud.
Footnote re the wider refugee crisis: Conceivably the Sunni-Shi'ite violence in the American-occupied areas of Iraq is diminishing: this story, quoting Iraqi Government sources, argues that it is, though the Iraqi Government has a vested interest in claiming an improvement. In response, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees argues that there has been no improvement. But even if the UNHCR is wrong, the Iraqi Government is right and things have got better for refugees from Baghdad and neighbouring areas that is, sadly, irrelevant to Britain's employees in the South of the country. What's still the case is that Basra is now effectively under the control of various Shi'ite groups who have varying amounts of loathing for the British and their Iraqi employees, and that one of the most powerful is the Mahdi Army, who fought several outright battles against British troops and have a long track record of killing 'Locally Employed Civilians'.

I wrote to my MP over this affair during the summer and received a prompt reply with the promise of a response from David Miliband when it came. It never came. I will be writing again to my MP shortly using the information contained here. I urge any British citizen reading this to do the same. When things get so bad that those in desperate need feel they have to contact powerless bloggers instead of the relevant branches of Government begging for help, then the Government needs to be forced into taking effective action.

Tags: Middle East, We Can't Turn Them Away, Iraq, UK Armed Forces, Asylum, Refugees, Iraqi Interpreters,UK Politics

Warning: Armed, Dangerous Lunatics On The Loose In London

2007-11-01T23:38:00.000Z

Following the verdict at the Old Bailey in which the Metropolitan Police was found guilty of "a catastrophic series of errors" in the events leading to the public execution of Jean Charles de Menezes, we hear that the killers who shot the Brazilian electrician seven times in the head with dum-dum bullets at point blank range while he was being held down (and still managed to miss several times) are back on active duty and have been for some time.

Despite their notoriety, the pair's identity has never been revealed, and their names are a closely guarded secret within the elite Met firearms unit, now known as CO19.
Retired superintendent Phil Manns, a former commander of the firearms unit, has described the pair as "incredibly mature, well-adjusted, competent, professional officers" [my emphasis].

So, the assassins who actually pulled the trigger(s) have been found to be in no way culpable. What a surprise! Perhaps the officer in charge of the botched operation is in some way responsible. You'd think so wouldn't you? But no, apparently not:

In a highly unusual move, the judge, Mr Justice Henriques, allowed the jury to insert a rider, or caveat, into the verdict stating that Cressida Dick, the commander in charge of the operation on the day, should not be held personally culpable for the events.

Well then, if neither the assassins or their commander are in any way responsible for the tragedy then surely the blame must fall on the The Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. Wrong again:

The Met commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said after the verdict that he would not be resigning and would go back to New Scotland Yard to "get on with my job". The prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said Sir Ian retained their "full confidence".

In other words absolutely no one is to be held accountable for the cold-blooded murder if an innocent man. Why is this?

The judge called the case a "corporate failure, not an individual failure". He said it was hard to decide the appropriate fine because "any costs to the police is a cost against a police officer on the streets".

Well how bloody convenient! In the end the fine that was decided was a pathetic £175,000 with £385,000 costs. And this after the Met had tried to cover its tracks with a tissue of lies and had done its best to smear Jean Charles de Menezes. There are so many lies, smears and episodes of incompetence that it's hard to know where to start, so in no particular order:

The Met dishonestly manipulated a photo of Jean Charles de Menezes in an attempt to make him look more like Hussain Osman, one of the men who tried to bomb London's transport network on July 21 2005.

We were told by the Met that Jean Charles de Menezes was killed because he acted in an "aggressive and threatening manner" when challenged and was "up for it"

The facts that Jean Charles de Menezes had apparently taken cocaine and had a fake stamp in his passport* was used as a smear to somehow justify the execution.

After the shooting, we were told that Jean Charles de Menezes was an illegal alien. He wasn't

We were told that he was wearing bulky coat, refused to stop when challenged and then vaulted the ticket barriers. Not true

We were told that there was no CCTV footage at the Stockwell tube station. There was (at least in the ticket area, no footage was recorded on the train or on the platform as far as we know).

The spotter who was supposed to verify Osman's identity had gone to the toilet and was absent from his post when de Menezes left his home.

A suspected bomber was allowed to make two bus journeys, but were told to hold back and wait for the firearms team to handle the arrest.

And yet, Cressida Dick told the court that she never gave an order to shoot. The Operation Kratos "shoot-to-kill" procedures were never invoked, and no Kratos codeword was issued. Somebody must have.

Add to all this the chaos and confusion in the control room and the fact that we now allow Israel, of all countries, to train Met Police firearms officers, we can see that this was an disaster just waiting to happen. This still leaves us with the question as to why with all these catalogued errors and lies, no one is being prosecuted or asked to resign? The "corporate failure, not an individual failure" line just doesn't wash. After a fuck-up this big there should be a whole bunch of resignations if not prosecutions. When corporations fail, resignations follow.

The only answer is that the Police are never held responsible when they kill innocent people and those responsible are often promoted so as to rub our noses in it. The only time accountability came close was when the police gunned down Harry Stanley in 1999 and five years later when the officers responsible were suspended from duty, over 100 armed officers returned their weapons in protest leading to the reinstatement of the culprits. In the case of the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes a clue was given by defence counsel Ronald Thwaites QC as to what would happen:

A successful prosecution of the Metropolitan police over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes would be like putting handcuffs on detectives and would damage the fight against serious crime in the UK, a jury was told yesterday.
A trial at the Old Bailey heard that the attempt to prosecute police over the death of the 27-year-old Brazilian, who was shot dead by police marksman at the height of the anti-terrorist operation in July 2005, was based on ignorance and hindsight.
"The prosecution in this case are attempting to dictate to the police how they should do their job from a position of near ignorance," defence counsel Ronald Thwaites QC told the jury.
He added that a conviction would "inhibit their effectiveness in combating serious crime" and said the trial should be viewed as a test case. "The prosecution do not appear to understand how the police organise themselves, how they conduct major operations, or how they work."

There you have it. Thankfully a jury was able to provide the correct verdict despite the lies given by the Met, but no prosecutions will come of it. And this was known before the trial ever started. The only way the incompetence could be highlighted at all was by charging the Met with "health and safety" violations. What a damning indictment of British justice!

* Clarification from John Lettice in the comments:
The Home Office never categorically stated that his leave to remain stamp was forged. It suggested that it was in a statement issued after an extensive record search, but didn't go as far as saying so. Covered in this article in The Register towards the end (another good piece by The Reg here).

More bloggage on this from Ten Percent, Mask of Anarchy, Obsolete, Paul Linford, Iain Dale, Pickled Politics, Bloggerheads, Chicken Yoghurt, Beau Bo D'Or, The Yorkshire Ranter, Blood & Treasure...

Tags: Jean Charles de Menezes, Stockwell Police Shooting, UK Police, British Justice, Ian Blair

Iraqi Employees - An Important Update

2007-10-09T04:53:00.000+01:00

There have been a few developments recently in the campaign to persuade our government to do the decent thing and grant asylum in the UK Iraqi employees of the British armed forces who are in danger of being tortured and killed. Let's start with the news that the Government seems to be responding to the pressure being put on it.

Iraqi interpreters and other key support staff who have risked their lives to work for Britain are to be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, The Times has learnt.
Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle.

Sounds good doesn't it? Except that it doesn't go anywhere near far enough and looks like being a classic case of New Labour smoke and mirrors trickery (remember the troop withdrawal announcement that wasn't what it seemed?). The timing was interesting to say the least, coming as it did just days after the US Senate approved an amendment by Senator Kennedy to a defence bill that will make it easier for America’s Iraqi friends to be allowed into the USA as refugees. The news also came before a meeting at Portcullis House where the plight of Iraqi employees will be discussed. Gordon Brown made a statement to Parliament in which he appeared to be heading in the right direction on this issue but provided few details.

Inadequate though it is, Brown's statement has at least brought the plight of Iraqi employees back onto the news agenda and today's meeting at Portcullis House will be interesting and I urge people to go if possible (I'm trying to juggle some other commitments so I can attend). Dan Hardie has done a sterling job of getting the campaign to this stage:

Meeting now in Portcullis House
And another announcement: the meeting on Iraqi Employees will take place on the same day (Tuesday 9th October) at the same time (7-9pm) with the same speakers in a changed venue very close to the original one: the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House (MPs’ own office block, opposite Parliament). The long-suffering and highly efficient Mette Kahlin will be standing outside the door of the old venue (Committee Room 14 in Parliament) pointing the way to the new venue, which is the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House. How do you get there? Walk to Parliament and it’s the very ugly building at the corner of Bridge Street and Victoria Embankment, facing Big Ben (or St. Stephen’s Tower, if you really must). If you get lost, which you won’t, ask one of the police officers, who are actually very helpful, or just look round for the biggest eyesore. It is unmissably hideous.
Poor Mette had the job, a couple of hours ago, of telling me that - despite the fact that she booked the room back in the first week of September, despite the fact that not double-booking rooms is a task open to the simplest person capable of using something like Outlook, despite the fact that a struggling provincial hotel could manage to avoid doing something like this- a Cabinet Minister claimed that she had previously booked the room and so we were bounced out. Oh, imagine my joy. It quite took the pleasure out of learning that I was a qualified physician [link added].
Salt in the wound: the Cabinet Minister in question is Hazel Blears. Silver lining: we can get TV crews in to film in the Attlee Suite, which we couldn’t in Committee Room 14. That’s Committee Room 14, our old venue. And of course our new venue is the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House.

With a little more pressure on the Government, it should be possible to get a more satisfactory solution for those Iraqis (all of them - and their families) who have risked their lives by working for the British army in non-combat capacities. For those unfamiliar with this campaign, here are some pointers.

Tags: Middle East, We Can't Turn Them Away, Iraq, UK Armed Forces, Asylum, Refugees, Iraqi Interpreters,UK Politics

One step closer to an inquiry into the Iraq war (prepare for whitewash)

2006-07-27T03:52:00.000+01:00

Military Families Against The War (MFAW) has won its fight for a judicial review into Government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into the UK’s participation into the Iraq conflict.

The Court of Appeal ruled they were entitled to apply for a judicial review of the government's refusal to hold an independent inquiry.

The applicants are relatives of four servicemen who died in military action between 2003 and 2005.

Their bid for a judicial review was blocked in the High Court in December.
Source

The decision of the appeal judges overturns the ruling of Mr Justice Collins who said that the case of MFAW was “unarguable”. The Government has argued that its right to go to war is not for the courts to decide and for the courts do so would be "unwarranted shift of power".

In their ruling, the appeal judges said: "It is at least arguable that the question whether the invasion was lawful - or reasonably thought to have been lawful - as a matter of international law is worthy of investigation."

The case now goes back to the same court and the same judges on November 6 so it is not thought that the appeal for an inquiry will be successful. So this is hardly the “stunning victory” claimed by MFAW but might take us one step closer to an Inquiry.

"In particular, the government must finally explain how the 13-page equivocal advice from the Attorney General of March 7 2003 was changed within 10 days to a one-page completely unequivocal advice that an invasion would be legal."

So although the case for an inquiry does not seem very sound, the judicial review might throw up some more nuggets of information which may take us further towards an inquiry. The Government will argue that we have already had numerous inquiries into the Iraq war including the Hutton and Butler reports, but this is not necessarily true. The Hutton ~~inquiry~~ whitewash was set up to look into the very suspicious death of Dr David Kelly, and the Butler inquiry to look into the use of intelligence. The legality of the war has not yet been subject to an inquiry and if Blair has his way it never will. New Labour doesn’t do accountability.

Tags: Iraq war, Blair, Nu Labour

How to commit murder with impunity

2006-07-18T02:34:00.000+01:00

In this town [London] we shoot first and ask questions later (and then evade those questions, attempt a cover-up, smear the victim and find that if whoever did the shooting is employed by the Metropolitan Police then they are entirely innocent, whatever the circumstances).

We are, however, quite strict when it comes to Health and Safety regulations.

No police officers are to be prosecuted over the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at a Tube station last July.

But the Metropolitan force will be charged under health and safety laws.

The Crown Prosecution Service said there was "insufficient evidence" to prosecute any individual over the death at Stockwell, south London, on 22 July.

Alex Pereira, a cousin of Brazilian Mr Menezes, 27, who was shot seven times in the head, said the decision was "unbelievable" and "ridiculous".
Source

Jean Charles de Menezes was publicly executed on 22 July 2005 on a tube train at Stockwell station. He was shot at point blank range seven times in the head and once in the shoulder and even under those conditions the ‘sharpshooters’ managed to miss three times. His death sentence had been passed minutes earlier by the appropriately named Commander Cressida Dick who was in charge of the operation.

In a statement, CPS senior lawyer Stephen O'Doherty said: "The two officers who fired the fatal shots did so because they thought that Mr de Menezes had been identified to them as a suicide bomber and that if they did not shoot him, he would blow up the train, killing many people." To prosecute, the CPS would have had to prove that the officers did not believe Mr de Menezes was a terrorist.
Source

If they thought he was a terrorist about to blow up a train, how come they did not confront him earlier when he was on a bus that he could have blown up? He had been followed since he left his home.

Jean Charles de Menezes was executed under the police policy of ‘shoot-to-kill’ known as ‘Operation Kratos’. The tactics were learned in part from Israeli ‘security services’ which presumably means that should a police officer get captured then our cities will be reduced to rubble until he is returned.

It is not entirely surprising that no police officers will be prosecuted for this killing. No police officer has ever been prosecuted for killing innocent people, and it’s not for lack of cases. On September 22 1999 Harry Stanley, a painter and decorator, was shot in the head and hand outside an east London pub on for carrying a table leg which the police mistook for a gun. After a long legal battle the officers were exonerated by the ‘Independent’ Police Complaints Commission.

With this lack of accountability in the police force, we can expect more of these shootings. No one is suggesting that we don’t need an armed response unit for serious situations, but when there is a wrongful killing, those responsible should be held to account. It might mean that fewer officers volunteer for armed policing, but that has to be better than a larger number of officers able to kill anyone with total impunity.

Tags: Jean Charles de Menezes, Stockwell Police Shooting, UK Police

Craig Murray forced to remove documents from his website

2006-07-12T20:06:00.000+01:00

Craig Murray has head to remove the some of the documents he put on his website to support the claims he made in his book ‘Murder in Samarkand’. From Craig’s Website:

"We need another Dickens"
New Labour are not as stupid as they seem. I have now had a chance to take legal advice, and that advice is as follows. To defend this case would cost the price of a London house. I don't have a house, in London or anywhere else. I am therefore obliged to give in to force majeure and remove some of the documents from my own site. This reeking government is therefore able to mask its stink on this particular miniscule corner of the internet.

Here is another piece of legal advice I received. Copyright cases cover one instance of publication in one place. Anyone else who has published any government documents that might be Crown Copyright, or not, (and I believe there are hundreds of thousands of documents on the web on which the government could, by the argument in Mr Buttrill's letter, claim copyright), is an individual case and can wait to hear from Mr Buttrill.Force Majeure wields a two-edged sword.

Craig

But never mind, these documents are spread so far and wide over the internet now that Mr Buttrill will never be able to stop people seeing them. If you haven’t seen the documents yet, they’re available from here here, here, here, here, here, here, and as a bittorrent here. Also as an Edonkey File and here is a Magnet link for the Bittorent share. There is also a .torrent of the documents on mininova.

Hat-Tip to Chicken Yoghurt

Tags: Craig Murray, Murder in Samarkand, Torture, Rendition, Freedom of Information

"Isn't British justice good enough?"

2006-07-12T07:56:00.000+01:00

Apparently not! Perhaps, like our Home Office, British justice is not ‘fit for purpose’. The question above was on a banner being waved by demonstrators protesting at the extradition of Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat, two British Muslims accused of terrorist activities. If there is a case against these two men, then surely it aught to be heard in the UK, and if they are found guilty of a crime, they should be punished under British law.

But no, America commands and Britain obeys. Under the extradition treaty that Tony Blair thinks is so fair and reciprocal, they are to be sent to that bastion of fair-play and justice, the United States, where there is a possibility they will be sent on to Guantánamo Bay or some other gulag far away from away from those pesky human rights campaigners. It is revealing that the men’s barrister doesn’t believe US assurances that they won’t be sent to Guantánamo or a third country by ‘extraordinary rendition’ and has urged the judge to be sceptical about such promises.

Washington has promised that the two British men will not be sent to Guantánamo or turned over to a third country, but Mr Fitzgerald urged the high court judges not to rely on US assurances.
Source

The US administration believes these men to be ‘enemy combatants’ and because America is always right even when it is demonstrably wrong, there is no need at all for outdated concepts like evidence or a presumption of innocence. This is also what is happening with the so-called ‘NatWest Three’, the bankers who are also to be extradited to America, again without any evidence against them under an extradition treaty which was drafted for suspected terrorists. The alleged crimes, if committed, were committed in the UK, by UK citizens. The best commentary on this issue that I have read so far can be seen here.

Are we just a poodle? No, a super-poodle
Yes, but why? Why are we so pathetic? Britain is so grovellingly submissive to America as to make lapdogs look positively butch and poodles like keen independent spirits. We are all, by now, familiar with the craven manner in which we have decided to hand over British subjects for trial in America.

The baffling question is why? We beg, we fetch, we sit, we look up adoringly and wait to have our mangy old ears tickled by Uncle Sam, and it is not at all clear to the casual observer what we are getting in return.
Read the rest

This isn’t some rabid anti-American peace protester; this is Boris Johnson the Tory Member of Parliament for Henley on Thames. In another excellent post Boris explains what will happen to these men when they arrive in the USA

Tony Blair and the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith have been defending this disgraceful treaty which America has not even ratified. But for all their talk, the fact remains that British citizens can be extradited to the USA without as much as a shred of evidence against them, merely an assertion by the US. Obviously if Britain wants to extradite US citizens to face charges in this country then plenty of evidence is required. America, for all its faults, looks after its citizens (at least when they are accused of crimes abroad) and Tony Blair does absolutely nothing to protect a British citizen which is his duty as Prime Minister. This puts him completely out-of-touch with just about everyone else in the UK. MPs, peers, business leaders, the media, lawyers and bloggers, both from the left and the right seem extraordinarily united in their revulsion at this treaty, although why there wasn’t a sufficient protest in 2003 when David Blunkett passed this awful treaty is beyond me.

Back in June Tony Blair invited his subjects to ask him questions. This was too good an opportunity for many bloggers to miss and one blogger was fortunate enough to have his question not answered by the Prime Minister. Here is the question he asked:

Dear Prime Minister,

There have been several allegations of sexual harrassment made against the Deputy Prime Minister, notably from Linda McDougall, the wife of MP Austin Mitchell who alleges, in 1978, that he “pushed me quite forcefully against the wall and put his hand up my skirt”.

Were these allegations to be made against a teacher, social worker, a doctor or anyone else, do you think they should be treated as “a private matter”, as you regard the Deputy Prime Minister’s conduct, or do you think that person should face disciplinary proceedings?

Kinds regards

Justin McKeating

And here is a revealing part of the Prime Minister’s non-answer: (you can read the whole response here)

But I think the most important thing is that if we do something wrong, fair enough, but I think like everybody else we shouldn’t be assumed to have done certain things just because people make allegations about us.

Can you see what I’m getting at here? If it’s Blair, his ministers or American citizens who are accused of anything then mere allegations are not enough. If it’s the security services or the US government accusing us of any wrong-doing then mere allegations are more than enough.

The Treasury took action yesterday to stop the households of people suspected of links to al-Qa'eda and the Taliban from receiving state benefits and tax credits.[My emphasis]
Source

This theme crops up frequently these days with Blair’s preference for "speedy, simple summary justice" and rebalancing of the justice system. On a more positive note, if Babar Ahmad and Haroon Aswat do end up being rendered to Guantánamo (this time with Blair’s very obvious collusion), then they will now have to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.

Tags: Civil Liberties, Justice, UK Politics

Two blows against illegal legislation

2006-06-30T01:51:00.000+01:00

The governments of both Britain and America were dealt blows from their respective judiciaries yesterday. In Britain the High Court Judge Mr Justice Sullivan ruled that Government’s control orders were unlawful and breached Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), prompting John Denham the chairman of the Home Affairs Committee to speak of a looming constitutional crisis.

"There is a constitutional crisis emerging here I think about the way in which the judges and the courts are approaching these issues.

"When many of us, as I did, supported the Human Rights Act and indeed still support it, we thought that on great matters of state of this sort, if the elected Parliament had taken a careful view of what was in the wider public interest that would be given considerable weight by the courts.

"That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening at the moment and that’s why I don’t think it’s over the top to talk about an emerging constitutional crisis.

"We have got to have a serious discussion between law makers in Parliament, ministers and judges about the way through here. Before we get into too big a conflict, sensible people have got to get round the table and explore the way in which this is going to be handled."
Source

The control orders were brought in after the imprisonment of suspected terrorists without charge or access to the evidence against them was also ruled to be illegal. For the second time in as many weeks, a battle of wills has erupted between the Government and the judiciary with an angry John Reid has saying that the Government will now appeal the ruling. The appeal hearing next Monday will be interesting. If the Government loses, much of its anti-terror policy will be in shreds.

Article 5 of the ECHR is quite clear, it prohibits indefinite detention without trial. The Government will no doubt argue that the six foreigners affected by the control orders were not actually behind bars. However, all but one of them had to leave their homes and live in special Home Office-approved accommodation which they were required to remain in for 18 hours a day; they were also electronically tagged, and were unable to communicate with anyone without Home Office permission. Mr Justice Sullivan called this "the antithesis of liberty and equivalent to imprisonment".

What John Denham is calling a “crisis” is really just the judiciary doing its job and pointing out that it is the Government that is breaking the law. Michael Mansfield QC said:

"We are not on the verge of a constitutional crisis; what we are on the verge of is recognising at long last that the courts are performing the role they were always there to do.

"Although the government has been elected, the elected democracy has put in place a judiciary whose job it is to monitor the extent to which legislation is incompatible with human rights.

"That's exactly what the judges are doing and as soon as they do their job then in comes the government and says 'oh we don't like this, we wish to lock up people we think are suspects and subversive'.

"We can't tolerate a society in which a government is allowed that view untrammelled."
Source

While some politicians may use Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling as an excuse for abandoning the ECHR (which British lawyers and civil servants played a large part in drafting), the root of the problem is Tony Blair’s aversion to any legal system which differs from his own idea of "speedy, simple summary justice" which has little room for niceties such as evidence and the presumption of innocence and sees the role of judges as bureaucrats to rubber-stamp the decisions of the Government and the police.
His talk of rebalancing the justice system in favour of victims of crime is completely at odds with the idea of everyone being equal under the law and just panders to the unelected Murdoch tabloids which seem to be the real power in the country.

Across the Atlantic George Bush received a similar blow to his plans to use military tribunals to try the detainees at the Guantanamo gulag. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the military tribunals due to be held at the camp which were suspended after three detainees committed suicide are illegal. The ruling came after Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an inmate accused of being Osama Bin Laden’s driver challenged Bush’s right to try him under a military tribunal without the protections afforded military prisoners under the Geneva Conventions or US courts.

The US supreme court ruled today that the US president, George Bush, overstepped his authority in creating military war crimes trials for detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

In a rebuke to the Bush administration, Justice John Paul Stevens said the proposed trials were illegal under US law and Geneva conventions.

[…]

Justice Anthony M Kennedy, regarded as a moderate conservative, joined the court's liberal members in most of the ruling against the Bush administration.

"Trial by military commission raises separation-of-powers concerns of the highest order," Mr Kennedy wrote in his opinion.

"Concentration of power [in the executive branch] puts personal liberty in peril of arbitrary action by officials, an incursion the constitution's three-part system is designed to avoid."
Source

The rebuke echoes that given almost simultaneously to Tony Blair by the British High Court. The US ruling does not mean that Guantanamo will close just yet, but it does mean that the day of its eventual closure has been brought forward and that the detainees will either have to be given a fair trial or be released. It also puts limits on the power of the President to do as he pleases in a time of war.

By declaring the Guantanamo Bay military tribunals illegal, the U.S. Supreme Court put fresh curbs on President George W. Bush’s powers in the war on terrorism and gave ammunition to those demanding the prison be closed.

[…]

"The administration was asserting incredibly broad, essentially plenary, executive authority in this very broadly and very nebulously defined context of the war on terror," said retired Air Force lawyer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Walker. "This is nothing but a slap in the face of the administration."
Source

So the two world leaders who continuously wax lyrical about the rule of law have both been found to be flouting it by their own judiciaries. “Shoulder to shoulder” indeed.

Tags: Terrorism, Bush, Blair, Civil Liberties

Blair Out of Touch on Crime

2006-04-23T20:27:00.000+01:00

The Prime Minister, who won the 2005 election with a mere 22% of the vote, has accused MPs of being out of touch with the public on the issue of law and order.

He told a Sunday newspaper he wanted to "harry, hassle and hound" criminals into giving up - or leaving Britain.

His statements came in a series of emails between himself and Henry Porter writing for The Observer. Blair also denied that his government was eroding civil liberties with its draconian ‘anti-terror’ legislation, ID card scheme, DNA database, bans on ‘unauthorised’ demonstrations, and ASBOs.

While it is gratifying to see that Tony Blair is honouring his promise to be “to be tough on crime and the causes of crime”, Henry Porter is not the only one thinking that we are headed for becoming a police state (read the comments). What David Blunkett once called “prison without bars”, in reference to tagging and satellite tracking, seems now to apply to the whole population as the surveillance society expands. So, it will be interesting to see how Tony Blair and his government will respond to the seven separate criminal offences that may have been committed in the loans for honours scandal that is engulfing New Labour and the conservative party. The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International has presented Inspector John Yates, who is investigating the scandal, with an eight page dossier listing the possible crimes.

The possible criminal offences that TI UK suggests may have been committed - after a detailed legal analysis of the reported facts of the affair - are bribery, two separate counts of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, false accounting, conspiracy to defraud, fraudulent trading, and offences under the Competition and Enterprise Act.
Full Sunday Telegraph article

Hopefully, if there has been any government wrong-doing, then those responsible will be harried, hassled and hounded into giving up - or leaving Britain in accordance with Tony Blair’s wishes, even if they are not convicted of a crime and there is insufficient evidence to try them.

Tags: Britain, Blair, New Labour, Cash for Honours

Tim Worstall in The Times on Charlie the Safety Elephant

2006-04-21T15:24:00.000+01:00

For anyone who was interested in the very memorable piece Tim Worstall wrote a couple of days ago about Charles Clarke wanting to severely limit the compensation paid to victims of miscarriages of Justice, there is a follow up in The Times. Obviously the language is a little more restrained but the sentiments are exactly the same. The views shared by much of the blogosphere are now in the mainstream.

Given that more and more laws have been passed that hack away at our rights, and given that the courts rule, time and again, that these are illegal and in breach of the Human Rights Act, perhaps he expects a logjam of cases of wrongful imprisonment to come before the courts? A series of wrongly jailed innocents, people jugged by one or other restriction, will be freed by the first appeal court they reach that declares that the very law under which they were convicted was itself illegal?

This is well worth reading in full.

Tags: Britain, New Labour

Charles Clarke the Infallible

2006-04-19T17:31:00.000+01:00

Home Secretary, Charles Clarke wants to save £5m pounds a year by cutting the compensation paid out to victims of miscarriages of justice.

Those who win their appeals at the first attempt will get no compensation. Others who have spent years in prison will see any pay-outs capped.

Individual awards will be limited to £500,000 to bring them in line with the maximum amount paid to victims.

Mr Clarke seems to believe that people who have been wrongly convicted for crimes they did not commit are not victims themselves, despite spending time in prison and possibly losing their jobs, their homes, and maybe breaking up their families, as well as ruining their reputations.

"These changes will save more than £5m a year which we will plough back into improving criminal justice and support for victims of crime."

The discretionary compensation scheme, which currently pays out £2m a year, is to be scrapped, meaning that no compensation will be paid to people who win their appeals on their first attempt, even if they have spent 20 months in prison. As it is, the cost of board and living expenses are deducted from compensation payments for victims of miscarriages of justice.

So why is Charles Clarke doing this? The £5m he is trying to save is a paltry amount in the grand sceme of things; it is about the same amount Parliament spends in catering and is 0.001% of public spending (thanks to Tim Worstall for that). It could be that recently there have been a number of high-profile miscarriages of justice and the Home Secretary is expecting more as his badly drafted anti-terror legislation comes into force. Whatever the reason, for the state not to pay adequate compensation after ruining someones life is deeply shameful and I echo the statement in the title of Tim's piece as well as his suggestion on what to do to Charles Clarke.

*UPDATE*

It gets worse, reducing compensation payments seems to be part of a concerted attack on the criminal justice system. Now he's after the lawyers too.

Tags: Britain, New Labour

Another 'Affront to Justice' from the Home Office

2006-04-13T03:00:00.000+01:00

The Government's scheme of putting terrorist suspects under house arrest using so-called 'control orders' has been condemned by a high court judge. Mr Justice Sullivan called the legislation "an affront to justice" and "conspicuously unfair".

Mr Justice Sullivan said yesterday that the Government had tried to apply a "thin veneer of legality" to bring in new measures that denied individuals the right to a fair trial.

Source

His comments came as he was making a ruling on the challenge to a control order issued against a British Muslim referred to only as MB, the first such control order. MB was arrested after security services and the Home Secretary alleged that he had been planning to go to Iraq to fight the occupation. Before the control order MB had been held at London's Belmarsh prison along with other suspects without charge or trial, until that tactic too had been found to be illegal contravening the Human Rights Act.

The judge, however, also said that the laws had been drafted in such a way that courts could not overturn them.

In this case, the judge said, Charles Clarke had made his decision to issue the order based on "one-sided information", but he was "unable to envisage the circumstances" allowing the court to quash the home secretary's decision. As a result, the judge said, he would have to leave the order in place, even though he ruled that it contravened human rights law ... "Controlees' rights ... are being determined not by an independent court ... but by executive decision making untrammelled by any prospect of effective judicial supervision ... If you erect a structure where people in the position of your client, to be frank, don't have a chance, the secretary of state is always going to win."

Source

The Home Office rejected the ruling saying that it would appeal:

"The Government believes that control orders are the best way of addressing the continuing threat posed by suspected terrorists who cannot currently be prosecuted or, in respect of foreign nationals, removed from the UK."

Source

The Home Office also said that

"The ruling will not limit the operation of the act,... We will not be revoking either the control order which was the subject of this review, nor any of the other control orders currently in force on the back of this judgement... Nor will the judgment prevent the secretary of state from making control orders on suspected terrorists where he considers it necessary to do so in the interests of national security in future."

Source

In other words the Government can do precisely what it likes without any regard for the law whatsoever, and this is from the Home Office, the Government department responsible for upholding the law. If the Home Office appeal against the ruling fails, the Government may be forced to change its position as it did with the so-called Belmarsh system. Human rights lawyers applauded Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "This completely scandalous system of punishment without trial is definitely in tatters tonight. This policy - like its predecessor legislation, the Belmarsh disgrace - has been rightly and roundly condemned by the High Court. The Government now has no alternative but to go back to the drawing board."

Source

Tags: Britain, Democracy, Justice

Support Brian Haw

2006-04-03T06:09:00.000+01:00

I Just came across this on After Downing Street.Org

For those that don't know Brian Haw, he is the only anti-war protester allowed to keep a permanent vigil outside the Houses of Parliament after new laws came into being which prevent such demonstrations.

Laws requiring all demonstrations within a half-mile zone around Westminster to have police permission come into force on 1 August. [2005]

Brian won a court review by claiming that he is exempt from the ban as his protest pre-dates the new laws. He has continued his vigil outside parliament where he has been since June 2001 surrounded by anti-war placards despite harrasment by the police. But now a High Court decision today (Monday 3 April) will decide if Brian can stay.

This Monday 3 April, the Home Office and Metropolitan Police are appealing against the High Court decision in July last year that Brian is exempt from the ban on unauthorised protest near Parliament brought in by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.

The judges decided that the wording of the law, that protestors must seek authorisation before the START of a demonstration, meant that Brian, who has been continuing his protest in Parliament Square since June 2001, did not have to apply for permission - his protest had already started! The government were highly embarrassed that Brian became exempt form the law that they had brought in specifically to evict him.

Supporters of Brian are asking if some people can be in Parliament Square on Monday - partly to cover Brian's absence and then to support him later on. Members of the press are likely to be there to cover the event. You can also show support by turning up outside the Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London ON Monday 3 April at 10am. There will be a solidarity demonstration outside the court and people can then go in (court 71) to hear the proceedings.

Full article

Tags: Democracy Britain