A follow up to my diary published @BooTrib yesterday —
Breaking :: Documents Leaked on Menezes Death in London Subway ¶ Updated
Leaked report: Botched operation led to innocent Brazilian’s death
See MSNBC VIDEO of the fatal 30 minutes.
Britain’s top police officer, the Scotland Yard commissioner Sir Ian Blair, attempted to stop an independent external investigation into the shooting of a young Brazilian mistaken for a suicide bomber, it emerged yesterday.
Sir Ian wrote to John Gieve, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, on July 22, the morning Jean Charles de Menezes was shot at short range on the London tube. The commissioner argued for an internal inquiry into the killing on the grounds that the ongoing anti-terrorist investigation took precedence over any independent look into his death.
More to follow below the fold »»
Death in Stockwell
According to senior police and Whitehall sources, Sir Ian was concerned that an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission could impact on national security and intelligence. He was also understood to be worried that an outside investigation would damage the morale of CO19, the elite firearms section working under enormous pressure.
“We did make an error, the IPCC should have been called in immediately,” the police source said.
Later that same day, after an exchange of opinions between Sir Ian, the Home Office and the IPCC, the commissioner was overruled. A Whitehall insider said: “We won that battle. There’s no ambiguity in the legislation, they had to do it.”
But a statement from the Met yesterday showed that despite the agreement to allow in independent investigators, the IPCC was kept away from Stockwell tube in south London, the scene of the shooting, for a further three days. This runs counter to usual practice, where the IPCC would expect to be at the scene within hours.
March 04, 2005 — New Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair (oh no, not another one! Any relation we wonder?) has only been in office for a month – and already he has caused outrage. Recently he was accused of wasting public money by his decision to spend a hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds (£125,000) publishing an open letter to Londoners advertising himself, and wasting council taxpayers’ money.
[…]
However, it’s unlikely that he will do too much to antagonise the Police Federation, as witness his support for the two officers who killed Harry Stanley¹ when there was the aborsive SO19 firearms officers’ ‘strike’ recently.
November 8, 2004 — In an unprecedented action, up to 130 officers of the Metropolitan Police SO19 armed unit in London staged a two-day protest in which they refused to carry weapons. They were protesting a verdict of unlawful killing returned in the second inquest into the death of Harry Stanley, a painter and decorator shot dead by police in east London in 1999.
The deputy commissioner and commissioner designate of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, issued a statement in Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper on November 3, 2004 which was published under the heading, “We must stand by our hero gun cops.”
Blair said, “If the Government is to review murder legislation then surely there must be a place for measures which protect armed police from the prospect of serious criminal charges and prosecution.”
~~~
~~~
.
It must be What’s In A Name – BLIAR.
I kinda lost that automatic trust of government …
during the Congressional hearings on Nixon and Watergate.
<click pic for info Sam Ervin>
~~~
.
Sam Ervin Quotes
“Let books be your friends, for, by so doing, you can summon to
your fireside in seasons of loneliness the choice spirits of all
the ages. Observe mankind through the eyes of charity, for, by
so doing, you will discover anew the oft forgotten fact that
earth is peopled with many gallant souls. Study nature and walks
at times in solitude beneath the starry heavens, for, by so doing,
you will absorb the great lesson that God is infinite and that
your life is just a little beat within the heart of time. Cling
to the ancient landmarks of truth, but be ever ready to test the
soundness of a new idea. Accept whatever your mind finds to be true,
and whatever your conscience determines to be right, and whatever
your heart declares to be noble, even though your act in so doing
may drive a hoary prejudice from its throne. And, above all things,
meditate often upon the words and deeds of Him who died on Calvary
for, by so doing, ‘ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free.'”
by Sam Ervin :: Source
John Mitchell & John Ehrlichman
“I don’t think either one of them would have recognized the
Bill of Rights if they met it on the street in broad daylight
under a cloudless sky.”
by Sam Ervin
~~~
both of them!
calls Blair “Bush’s Bitch”.
again, I’m grateful to you Oui for keeping us all informed and alert.
What I would not give for some British journalists in this country. They know how to follow a story and dig some things up… unlike the US press which tends to become the story (I’m talkin’ to you Judy and Sir Douchebag!) instead of doing actual investigative work. I just hope they find something that implicates Bush too (on cooking the intelligence, preferably). They play too fast and loose with everything – money, facts, ethics – that there has to be lots in broad day light.
Wait. We need more E Pluribus Medias.
In addition to the better news, we need something along the lines on “Questions for the Prime Minister”. (On CSPAN here wednesday mornings. For americans unfarmiliar, it’s the equivalent of Galloway’s smackdown of the senate for 45 minuts every week. It would rule if Bush had to get up and get bitched out by Cynthia McKinney or Ron Paul right in his face every week.
Well wouldn’t you know it:
That should teach him/her not to mess with Sir Ian’s plans to cover up this murder. Damned whistleblowers… </sn>