News Digest - 14th October 2006

What happens when police kill?
13^th October 2006

New research into how armed police react in the highly charged seconds before pulling a trigger has exonerated many of blame in the US. Now it's being investigated by British police. Harry Stanley, Jean Charles De Menezes and Mohammed Abdul Kahar. Three innocent men shot by the Metropolitan Police. Read more >>

4WardEver Comment:
This strikes us as yet another attempt (and possibly one we should be worried about) to excuse armed officers of any wrongdoing even before they have done wrong – now there’s a contradiction in terms if ever we heard one!?

Is this just the tip of the iceberg? When increasing pressure and public exposure is being bought to bear on the police for all deaths in custody, what next? Pre-post traumatic syndrome!! Well worth a watch….. Make up your own mind.
Tippa Naphtali

US soldiers killed British TV reporter
13^th October 2006

A coroner ruled Friday that British television journalist Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed by US forces in southern Iraq in 2003 and said he would try to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted. Following his verdict, Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coroner Andrew Walker said he would write to the director of public prosecutions "to see whether any steps can be taken to bring the perpetrators responsible for this to justice." Read more >>

Breakthrough in Brit execution case
12^th October 2006

A European Parliament member has won EU backing in a bid to save a British citizen from execution. Mirza Tahir Hussain faces execution in Pakistan after a man died in a freak accident after the man tried to molest Hussain. The 36-year-old British national was due to be hanged on 1st October, but that date has been postponed under after Ramadan which ends next week. Read more >>

Tribute to ‘OB’ from Rachael Ford (wife of Tony Egbuna Ford)
10^th October 2006

On this day when activists all over the world try to get people to think about this barbaric system I want to share a video one of my best friends made in memory of her husband, executed just a few short months ago. "OB" was one of Tony's (my husband's) closest friends, and I had the honour of sharing a visit with Tony (known to his friends as Egbuna) as Noora visited OB on their wedding day.

I hope if nothing else it makes you stop for a second, and think about doing something, anything, to stop more families going through what Noora has to go through now. I know it is so easy to feel this is something so abstract it doesn't have any bearing on life in a country without a death penalty, but killing anyone and calling it justice really kills a little of the humanity in all of us.

OB we miss you - and we're still shouting out loud about you, just like I told you we would! See the movie >>