Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Considering the fact that most British courts are graced with portraits of such paragons of moral rectitude as the individuals who forced China to open its markets to British opium produced in its colonies in the Indian subcontinent, one can be fogiven for finding the phrase ’British justice’ something of an oxymoron. However, thanks to the education system bequeathed by the retreating Brits, in many postcolonial states many still live under the illusion that Britain has a justice system. It does not. What is has is no different than Zimbabwe. Except perhaps in Zimbabwe the use of state terror is less blatant. The execution of Jean Charles de Menezes is the most egregious — and for the victim, tragic – example of state terror. As an apparent acknowledgement of the agency in this execution, the British establishment has just announced that the 11 people involved in the murder are not even going to face disciplinary action, let alone be punished for it. BBC reports:

After months of leaks and a frenzy of speculation, the Crown Prosecution Service had concluded that no individual was to be charged over the fatal shooting of the 27-year-old Brazilian electrician at Stockwell Underground station on 22 July 2005.

Elsewhere it says:

The family of Mr Menezes – shot eight times at Stockwell Tube station after being mistaken for a suicide bomber – said the decision was “disgraceful”.

The family’s reaction is understandable; however, BBC’s insistence on regurgitating the discreditec story, that was only exposed thanx to a leak from a courageous person within the IPCC, is not. Contrary to the Police’s initial claims, it was revealed that Menezes never jumped the turnstile, was not running and neither was he wearing a puffa jacket. On the contrary, he was under surveillance from the moment he left his home, he walk all the way to a bus, got in, got off, walked to an underground station, bought a ticket, and walked to the tube. That is when he was grabbed by members of the police death squad, and seven bullets were pumped into his head, while he had already been immobilized by two members of the team. Had the police suspected him of being a suicide bomber, would they not have tackled him when he was walking to the Bus? After all, how could they be sure he was not a bus-bomber, rather than a tube-bomber?

So how does the Crown Prosecution Service get away with this whitewash? What tortuous reasoning was employed to back this egregious failure of justice?

The family had wanted to see the CPS bring murder charges against the two officers who fired the fatal shots. They had gambled on perhaps achieving a manslaughter trial…

A murder charge would require lawyers to prove in court, beyond reasonable doubt, that the two officers did not genuinely and honestly believe that Mr Menezes was about to blow himself up. And that would be too difficult to prove, the CPS said.

Manslaughter was discounted, as was the related possibility of forgery charges relating to claims that documents were doctored as part of a cover-up.

Only the health and safety charges would have any possibility of succeeding in an English court room, argued the CPS, and that meant no individual could possibly be held singularly responsible for Mr Menezes’ death.

The family of Jean Charles must clearly be in awe of this exemplary carriage of justice.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Mr Pereira. “We’ve had to wait for a whole year – and it’s been a hard year – to end up with something that does not make sense to the family.

“We just don’t know what we have been waiting for all this time. The family in Brazil are shocked.”

The BBC then innocently asks,

At the heart of the death of Mr Menezes remains the unanswered question of why the two unnamed firearms officers who followed him into the Tube at Stockwell shot at him 11 times.

Unlike the average disempowered Brit, however, this is not one family that is ready to let someone get away with the murder of one of their own.

They are taking deep breaths and preparing for a longer battle. Whatever the truth, they believe that they are victims of a strategy to delay and procrastinate in order to wear them down. Nothing could be further from the truth, say the investigating authorities.

But in the short-term, the family may challenge the CPS’s ruling, saying that health and safety laws designed to prevent building site accidents are not exactly appropriate for the shooting to death of a commuter.

But for such a challenge to work, they would face the uphill task of proving that prosecutors do not understand the crime of murder. The even more difficult business of a private prosecution would only be considered as a “last, desperate resort” they say.

But with the anniversary of the death approaching, they are also demanding that Mr Menezes inquest be held, in the hope that it will lead to the publication of the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s so far unseen report…

“An inquest would give them the opportunity to interrogate the officers [who shot], to cross-examine them and the evidence, rather than be excluded from the entire legal process.”