London's police force went on trial yesterday, accused of violating health and safety laws during an anti-terrorist operation that ended in the fatal shooting of a Brazilian electrician mistaken for a suicide bomber.
The Metropolitan Police force is expected to plead not guilty to a charge stemming from the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot seven times in the head aboard a London subway train in July 2005.
Prosecutors will ask why de Menezes -- mistakenly identified as a terrorist suspect -- was able to leave his home, board a public bus and enter the subway system, where he was gunned down at close range by armed officers.
Prosecutors have charged the force as a whole with failing to preserve public safety during the operation, but ruled out criminal charges against any officers.
The case raises important questions about how far rules to protect employees in the workplace should apply to police officers and other members of the emergency services. De Menezes was killed amid a huge police manhunt, a day after five men attempted to detonate explosives-filled backpacks on London's transit system on July 21, 2005.
That attack failed. But two weeks earlier, 52 people died and hundreds were injured when suicide bombers struck three subway trains and a bus.
The police force has accepted its responsibility in de Menezes' death, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission has ruled out action against any officers.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Nauru said it would hold a referendum to change its official name, described as a colonial relic from a time when “foreign tongues” mangled the native language. Nauru would change its name to Naoero to “more faithfully honor our nation’s heritage, our language and our identity,” Nauruan President David Adeang said in a statement on Tuesday. The Pacific island nation’s native language is Dorerin Naoero, which is spoken by the vast majority of its approximately 10,000 inhabitants. “Nauru emerged because Naoero could not be properly pronounced by foreign tongues, and was changed not by our choice, but for convenience,” the government said in
RSS