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Posted on 03/12/2006 6:06:48 AM PST by Hannah Senesh
GOVERNMENT lawyers have told police chiefs preparing to “shoot to kill” suspected suicide bombers that they are likely to escape criminal charges even if they kill an unarmed or innocent person.
The legal advice is contained in confidential legal papers prepared for the Metropolitan police Special Branch and chief constables.
More than 150 pages of documents, seen by The Sunday Times, detail Operation Kratos People and Operation Clydesdale, the secret guidelines on dealing with suicide bombers. They provided the justification for the operation that led to the accidental shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian, at Stockwell Tube station in London last July.
This weekend Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, the human rights group, said that she had resigned from the review panel set up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), which last week declared the guidelines “fit for purpose”. She said: “It was window dressing, the review was a sham.”
The leaked documents reveal that at the time of the shooting, Scotland Yard’s firearms officers and senior commanders were acting on advice from one of the government’s top lawyers: that they could mount a successful defence to murder or manslaughter charges even if they killed a person who was not carrying a bomb.
The police had been told that they did not have to prove that they had acted reasonably in shooting dead an unarmed person. All they had to show was that they “believed” they were acting reasonably, a much more liberal level of defence.
Critics say that the advice amounts to a licence to kill innocent or unarmed people. In Israel, by contrast, police have to demonstrate that a suspect is actually carrying a bomb before they are permitted to open fire.
Chakrabarti said someone should be held accountable if police shoot and kill entirely innocent people: “No one is suggesting that an officer acting reasonably and in good faith should face murder charges. But if, as this leaked document suggests, the Acpo guidance is less stringent than in Israel — if it allows lethal force without firm belief that a suspect is carrying a bomb — those responsible for this system will have to carry the can.”
The controversial guidelines were drawn up by Acpo. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks in America, it was searching for a legal framework to deal with the threat of suicide bombers posed by the rise of Al-Qaeda.
The advice by David Perry, a leading Treasury counsel, will reassure police marksmen and their commanders that even if they make critical “mistakes of fact”, they can be confident of having a good defence to possible murder charges.
Perry was asked by Special Branch to give the government’s legal opinion on a hypothetical scenario in which two suspected suicide bombers target a Westminster conference hosted by Tony Blair.
“If a police officer genuinely believes that a person is in possession of explosive substances and poses a danger to the lives and safety of others, the defence (of self-defence) would be available if, for example, the police officer shot that person,” Perry said.
“The defence would be available to the commander who gave the order to shoot and the officer who shot the suspect.”
Perry advises that the police do not have any duty of care to the public. They are thus not liable for damages for killing an unarmed person and failing to shoot the real bomber, as in the scenario.
That advice is likely to help both the two Scotland Yard marksmen who shot de Menezes in the mistaken belief that he was one of the failed Tube bombers of July 21, and Commander Cressida Dick, the senior officer who ordered them to stop him.
The Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether they and at least 10 other officers involved in the shooting operation should be charged with murder or manslaughter.
The Kratos guidelines also reveal the detailed advice on how to spot a suicide suspect.
Officers are told to look for people who may be sweating or look “recently clean shaven (with) short hair”. According to the document, suspicious behaviour includes “mumbling, possibly praying, looking anxious, wearing bulky clothing not in keeping with the weather, (and) holding something in the hand/clenched fist; wire or toggle protruding from bag.”
Police are told they must stand at least seven metres from a suicide bomber if they are to survive blast injuries. They are warned that even if a suicide bomber is shot dead, an accomplice may be waiting in the wings to detonate the bomb by remote control.
Firearms officers who may confront a suicide bomber are told: “It seems like an impossible task. But there are things you can do.” The recommended course of action is not to challenge the bomber but to “neutralise” him or her by firing a “critical head shot”. It adds: “Immediate incapacitation is essential as our objective is to prevent detonation.”
In the fictional scenario, Blair is hosting a conference on Afghanistan at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in Westminster. With him are Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the American defence secretary, and the French and German foreign ministers. They are all under threat from a cell of Al-Qaeda suicide bombers in a case study intended to provide practical guidance for British police chiefs on how to operate a “shoot-to-kill” policy.
The police sniper shoots dead a male suspect, who is subsequently found not to have been carrying a bomb. A second sniper then refuses to shoot a female suspect — thus failing to prevent her killing 15 people, including four police officers.
The scenario resembles a genuine Al-Qaeda plot to kill Tony and Cherie Blair, disclosed last year by Lord Stevens, former Metropolitan police commissioner. The aborted attack was scheduled for June 2002 while the Blairs attended the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations outside Buckingham Palace.
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In the era of suicide bombers, there is no alternative to a shoot-to-kill policy.
Muslim 'brown shirts' = planned death of republics
imo
I suspect that you are a suicide bomber. Who should I give your name to?
A decade ago, I was upset that Hong Kong was being handed over to a totalitarian police state. Turns out, they were lucky.
Not a valid argument to get hypothetical.
If someone is acting suspiciously, I don't see any alternative.
Show your hands when asked to and don't run when law enforcement commands you to halt.
The poster you criticize is correct.
Stop "Opinionating" and listen to individuals like he and soon your sign-in will be "Factinator."
So, you are comparing a democracy like Britain to dictatorship like China?
Ooops!! I forgot that bit! Thanks!
Giving the teeth back to our toothless old watchdog is not PC but it is a return to historical understanding of authority.
Do you wish Western Europe and the U.S. to survive or do you wish to drown our many nations in PC impotence.
Show your hands when asked to and don't run from law enforcement when they order you to stop.
We have become a nation of cowards. I doubt wheter the West has the moral courage to return to our foundational principles.
We will die because we have neither the will nor courage to keep the barbarians outside the gates.
Irish Thatcherite, eh?
You give me reason to hope for our little Island.
May you have many Children! :)
TMc.
That's exactly what I'm doing. They're both police states, but China is less efficient and getting better. The Brits are more oppressive every day.
There are certain people here on FR with outdated veiws of Ireland, they don't like my screenname LOL!!
I think that history will record that Thatcher was better for Ireland than Tony Blair.
Well, ok, I don't like the Big Brother mentality of Blair, it's just I don't like a Western country being compared to China.
Wouldn't the thought of deporting all muslims back to their own countries work well? It would be a bit expensive upfront, however, since their perverted religious beliefs don't really allow assimilation into Western style civilization, I don't think the West has much of a choice.
Given they believe anyone who is not a muslim (infidel) is to be conquered, converted or killed, what choice do we have in the long run? Given the West consists primarily of democracies or republics based on a system of Judeo-Christian laws, from what I understand during times of war, you change the laws, treat them as if they were Stalinists or Nazis, and deport them. All of them. Then you wouldn't have that growing terrorist element to deal with going forward. The world hates us now, they'll hate us more as a result, and probably throw economic blockades at us that only hurt them as well. Too bad. We'll get through it.
The assumption that there are peaceful muslims, well, they don't police or expose their own (given they cannot turn over a superior muslim to an inferior infidel), and are imtimated or threatened with death from their xenophobic mullahs if they stray from the zombie herd, so what are we in the West to do, pray tell (to God, not Allah), if we want to maintain Western societies, when elements of our destruction are being sown as we speak? Am I wrong?
Somebody tell me that I am not seeing this issue for what it truly is? The history of Islam is that of war against anyone and everyone who is not, correct? This is basic tenents of their twisted relgious beliefs, and unless there is a reformation of sorts, it won't change...so what alternative is there? I don't see any other option than to keep them at bay, seclude them in their own places of origin or destroy them. Do you?
That's not a bad idea!!
"(Follow Israel's example says Liberty!)"
That is NOT Israel's policy and has been denied by Israel. That lie was another British SMEAR of the Israelis.
There are no examples of Israelis deliberately shooting unarmed innocents in the head multiple times as the person lay prostrate on the ground.
There are plenty of examples of incredibly brave Israeli private security guards and police giving their lives as they tackle suicide bombers to spare civilian casualties.
I guess I better not go to England on a hot day, I might get shot.
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