UK
UK spies won’t face criminal charges for torture
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LONDON—Agents working for Britain’s spy agencies won’t face criminal charges over their alleged complicity in the mistreatment of former Guantanamo detainees, the country’s top prosecutor said Thursday.
They may, however, still face civil action from victims who say the British government passed on information about them to their foreign captors accused in their mistreatment. None of the British agents were accused of directly torturing or mistreating detainees.
Prosecutors have been investigating allegations of ill treatment of detainees who eventually were sent to the U.S. prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. Most of the torture allegations come from terror suspects who were either initially held in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or sent to other countries such as Morocco for interrogation.
Police and the Crown Prosecution Service said if more evidence came to light, criminal investigations could be reopened.
A separate inquiry into British complicity in torture, intelligence sharing and the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects is set to begin now that the police and prosecutors have said there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.
Britain has already made payouts to 16 former detainees at Guantanamo. Among those alleged to have been part of the settlements were Binyam Mohamed, Bishar Al Rawi, Jamil El Banna, Richard Belmar, Omar Deghayes, Moazzam Begg and Martin Mubanga.
UK security forces tracked car of alleged IRA man
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DUBLIN—A prosecutor says British anti-terror agents placed an electronic surveillance device on a car used by an alleged Irish Republican Army dissident charged with killing a Northern Ireland policeman.
The claim came on Monday’s opening of the murder trial of John Wootton and Brendan McConville.
Both men deny fatally shooting policeman Stephen Carroll through the head in a March 2009 ambush claimed by the Continuity IRA splinter group. Carroll was the first policeman killed in Northern Ireland since 1998, the year of the territory’s peace accord.
State prosecutor Ciaran Murphy told Belfast Crown Court that police could connect both defendants to the killing partly because a tracking device hidden in Wootton’s car placed him at the scene of the attack.
UK man who cooked microwave jailed
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A UK man who microwaved a pet cat to death in a friend’s apartment was jailed for six months for what the judge called a “despicable” crime.
Paul Owen Henry, 45, was also banned from owning animals after being found guilty of causing unnecessary suffering to the feline, the Gainsborough Standard reported.
Henry had been left alone in Andrew Parsons’ home in Gainsborough, about 258km north of London, last July when he placed his friend’s 18-month-old cat, named Suzie, in the microwave.
Within 50 minutes of Parsons’ departure, Henry sent a text message to his then-girlfriend, saying, “Claire, just cooking Andy’s cat, enroute,” British newspaper the Daily Mail reported.
A second message soon followed which read, “Just cooking Andy’s cat in microwave, be two minutes.”
When Parsons returned from work, he was devastated to find his apartment trashed and Suzie’s remains in the microwave.
Written on a kitchen wall was a parting shot from Henry, “Menu fried cat £1.20.”
“I found my cat’s remains in the microwave and there was some writing on the wall. I was sickened, distraught, I could not believe it,” Parsons said in court. “I had her since she was four-weeks-old.”
The court heard that Henry was high on liquid amphetamine at the time. Jailing Henry and disqualifying him from owning animals, Judge John Stobart described the offense as “despicable.”
2 men found guilty in UK black teen’s murder
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LONDON—In a case that exposed racism and incompetence in Scotland Yard and took nearly two decades to bring anyone to justice, a jury found two men guilty Tuesday of brutally stabbing a black teenager to death.
Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, were convicted of killing 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence as he waited for a night bus in southeast London in 1993. The pair will be sentenced Wednesday and face life in prison.
“Had the police done their job properly, I would have spent the last 18 years grieving for my son rather than fighting to get his killers to court,” said Lawrence’s mother, Doreen, who said Tuesday’s verdict was tinged with sadness.
The investigation—which has seen multiple court appearances by suspects over the years but no convictions until now—led to strong criticism of London’s Metropolitan Police and resulted in an investigation that found the force was “institutionally racist” and had bungled evidence-gathering. It also led to a change in Britain’s double jeopardy rules.
It has been one of the most notorious unsolved murder cases in Scotland Yard’s recent history—and police admit the investigation isn’t over yet.
Lawrence, who had wanted to study architecture, was stabbed twice and bled to death as he stood at a bus stop with his friend Duwayne Brooks. He was attacked by a gang of youths and police say they believe others were involved in the stabbing.
“I do not think I’ll be able to rest until they are all brought to justice,” Lawrence’s father Neville said in a statement read out by his lawyer after the verdict.
Arrests weren’t made until two weeks after the murder. Then—in 1996—three of the suspects—Neil Acourt, Luke Knight and Dobson—were acquitted.
Tireless campaigning from Lawrence’s family—and a change of government in 1997—helped keep the case alive, with Britain’s left-leaning Labour Party commissioning a public inquiry into the murder and the police investigation.
The resulting report, written by William Macpherson, found that the police were “institutionally racist” and had failed to investigate Lawrence’s murder carefully because he was black.
The Macpherson report led to a sea change in British race relations—and breathed new life into the prosecution after authorities relaxed England’s rules on double jeopardy, which say that a person cleared of a crime cannot be retried for the same offense.
Still, obstacles remained.
In 2004, prosecutors announced there was “insufficient evidence” to pursue anyone for the murder amid allegations of police corruption.
But new forensic evidence uncovered in 2007 helped save the case.
Scientists subjected the evidence to months of careful tests, retrieving fibers from clothing taken from the suspects. They found a single hair matching Lawrence’s DNA and a microscopic blood stain invisible to the naked eye.
In 2011, a new trial was set up at London’s Central Criminal Court. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday he hoped the conviction would offer some comfort to Lawrence’s family.
He said the verdict would not “ease the pain of losing a son, but … I hope that it brings at least some comfort after their years of struggle.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband said he believed the Lawrence case would leave a powerful legacy for Britain.
“The murder of Stephen Lawrence was not only a tragedy for a talented young man and his family, it was a wake-up call to all of us who believe Britain is and always must be a country where everyone is shown respect irrespective of race, culture or faith.”
Dobson and Norris had both denied the charges. After the verdict, Dobson said as he was leaving the court: “You have condemned an innocent man here, I hope you can live with yourselves.”
UK man in court over killing of Indian student
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LONDON—A 20-year-old British man charged with the murder of an Indian student said during a court appearance Monday that his name was “Psycho.”
Kiaran Stapleton was charged with shooting 23-year-old Anuj Bidve on Dec. 26 in a seemingly unprovoked attack in the northern city of Salford. Police are investigating whether the crime was racially motivated.
Stapleton appeared at the City of Manchester Magistrates Court. When asked to state his name, he said, “Psycho. Psycho Stapleton.”
Prosecutor Ben Southam said Stapleton will be held in custody for 24 hours and sent to Manchester Crown Court, which deals with murder cases.
Bidve was from the western Indian city of Pune and enrolled in a postgraduate course in microelectronics at Lancaster University in northern England. He was on a holiday break with a group of nine friends when he was shot. He had arrived in Britain just three months ago.
Two Greater Manchester Police officers have flown to India to meet with Bidve’s family.
His father, Subhash Bidve, has criticized how British and Indian authorities have handled the case. He found out about his son’s death on Facebook before U.K. police could contact him.
A candlelight memorial service for Bidve is set for Monday evening in the street where he was shot, while a peace march has been organized in India, starting near Nehru Park in New Delhi and finishing at the British Embassy.
UK to investigate French-made breast implants
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LONDON—The British government launched an investigation Saturday into whether potentially faulty breast implants fitted by a French company pose a risk to women.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley ordered the urgent review of the safety of silicon implants made by the now-defunct French company Poly Implant Prothese after saying he had received new information about them.
The implants were pulled off the market last year in countries around Europe and South America amid fears they could rupture and leak silicone into the body.
France’s health safety agency said the implants appear to be more rupture-prone than other types. French investigators also said PIP used industrial silicone instead of the medical variety to save money. However, the medical risks posed by industrial silicone are unclear.
Around 40,000 women in Britain have such implants.
Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency had said it did not see enough proof of cancer or an excessive risk of rupture to recommend women in Britain have the implants removed, but Lansley said the newly received data prompted the government decision to investigate.
“I want to reassure women that if any new data comes to light which calls into question the safety of these implants, we will act swiftly to help them,” he said. “Our top priority is making sure that women get the correct advice so that they are kept safe.”
Lansley said Britain’s medical regulator wouldAdvertisement also carry out an audit of the content and quality of data that cosmetic surgery providers share with authorities. Prof. Bruce Keogh, the medical director of Britain’s National Health Service, will lead the investigation.
France’s health system has recommended that women with the PIP implants get them replaced and has agreed to pay for surgeries. Brazil said Friday that it has permanently banned PIP implants, but did not guarantee that the state would pay for women to have them agreed.
Earlier in the week, Venezuela said it would offer free surgery for women to remove the PIP implants, and in Argentina 50 women threatened to sue their plastic surgeons if they don’t get free replacements of the implants.
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