Judiciary backs the State and finds Smellie not guilty

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The judge gave her verdict on Wednesday at Westminster magistrates court, in the non-jury trial of Sgt Smellie, the Met police TSG riot cop accused of assaulting a woman at last years G20 protests. Smellie had backhanded, and then hit twice on the leg with his metal baton, Nicola Fisher, the woman concerned. The question revolved around whether or not his baton strikes were excessive, as his backhander was deemed appropriate even by the prosecutor.

District Judge Daphne Wickham found no evidence had been provided to show use of the baton was not measured or correct. She said: “It was for the prosecution to prove this defendant was not acting in lawful self-defence. The prosecution has failed in this respect and the defendant has raised the issue of lawful self-defence and as such is entitled to be acquitted.” The judge said Sgt Smellie had a “mere seven seconds” to act when Ms Fisher ran in front of him hurling abuse at a vigil held on 2 April to mark the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson at a previous demonstration. (from BBC report).Read More

Smellie in court, but G20 Bristolian found not guilty

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Sgt Smellie, a riot cop in the Met’s Territorial Support Group (TSG – fully trained riot thugs), has been up in Westminster Magistrates Court all week so far on a charge relating to the anti-G20/police brutality protests on 1 and 2 April last year in central London around the financial district. Smellie is charged with ‘common assault by beating’, which relates to his violent assault on a woman on 2 April when protesters gathered in response to the death of Ian Tomlinson the day before.Read More

Training for Cop watching

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Many abuses of police powers occur because we let them. Legal observation and police monitoring are effective tools in tackling such abuses and can make a real difference from collating the data necessary for effective legal challenges to providing and collecting witness statements for those arrested. These actions have both challenged the way protest and the streets are policed and kept innocent people out of prison.Read More

Memorial event for Ian Tomlinson victim of G20 cop violence

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(Update: Pictures and report of the memorial event are here.)

The Ian Tomlinson Family Campaign have called for a memorial gathering on the 1st anniversary of his death, at 11am on Thursday 1 April. People are asked to gather at the spot where he died in the City of London, just moments after he was violently assaulted from behind by a cop in riot gear. Please meet at Cornhill, by Threadneedle St, London EC3V (Bank tube), at 10.45am, so a minutes silence can be observed at 11am. One year on from his death, no cop has been held responsible.Read More

14th Annual International Day Against Police Brutality in Montreal

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100 Arrested, Undercover Cops Forced Out of Protester’s Ranks
by Gord Hill

As a Montreal police helicopter hovered overhead, speakers at the 14th Annual Protest Against Police Brutality denounced the 43 police-related killings in the city since 1987, including the 2008 shooting of 18 year old Fredy Villanueva in Montreal’s north end. According to a call-out by organizers, the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality (COPB):
“These ‘peace officers’ abuse their powers and sometimes even kill innocent and unarmed individuals without the least worry of being punished, since they know the system is there to protect them. This situation has a name: impunity.”Read More

Update on the EDO Decommissioners

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Some fairly urgent updates on the Bristol EDO Decommissioners

Firstly, as Elijah ‘James’ Smith approaches 14 months locked up on remand, without a trial of course, he’s been given a new prison number – A3186AM.

Do please sned in your letters of support and solidarity, and news of any campaigns and stuff you’ve been involved in. Send an SAE too if you’d like a reply. Write to: Elijah Smith – A3186AM, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1EA.

Secondly, word reaches us that Robert Alford, one of the Bristol 6, was re-arrested about 10 days ago. After being on remand for months, Robert was eventually allowed out on bail, with an electronic tag, to an address in London. He then moved to an address in Bristol, then a second address and possibly a third, before skipping bail. He is now back on remand, and we’ll add more details when we get them. Or check The Decommissioners.

Lastly, some good news. It appears the prosecutors will not be appealing the outcome of the court hearing on 1 March, which means the Decommissioners will be able to present the defence in court that they have always argued for. Game on.

Amadeu Casellas is free!

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Amadeu Casellas has been released on 9th March around noon, after 24 years of imprisonment. Once examined all the charges, the prison director concluded that Amadeu has spent 8 more years in prison than he should have had. Amadeu was first arrested in 1979, for robbing banks to fundraise social and workers’ struggles. During his imprisonment he’s always kept his spirit high and has fought hard for freedom, justice and prisoners’ rights; only in the past 2 years he’s done 3 hunger strikes.

Until all are free!

For an article on Amadeu’s latest hunger strike read here.

Here is an interview to Amadeu on the 325 website.

Active Solidarity freesheet, Jock Palfreeman, and letter writing night

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Our friends at the long running Brighton ABC group have just released the latest issue of their Active Solidarity freesheet. You can download it as a pdf here Active Solidarity_Mar10 and do pass it on.

One of the political prisoners they feature is Jock Palfreeman, whose case we featured back in December here. Jock is serving 20 years in a Bulgarian prison after defending himself against a large gang of nazis, one of whom he killed in self-defence, and wounded another. He has 2 chances of appeal to different levels of courts before his sentence is finalised. A letter just received from him in Bristol, and sent in mid-February, finds him in fine form, although when refering to the appeals he believes they are a bit of a foregone conclusion, not least because some judges were at the funeral of the nazi he killed. However since he sent that letter, matters have taken a turn for the worse for him, as revealed on his campaign website FreeJock – on 19 February he was placed in complete isolation (solitary confinement), the first prisoner to be so treated. In fact he could be there for upto 2 years whilst the appeals procedure is exhausted, which is an outrageous injustice designed to intimidate prisoners from appealing miscarriages of justice. Please check the links on FreeJock here and here and get sending letters of protest on his behalf.Read More

Legal progress for the EDO Decommissioners but one remains on remand

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UPDATE: Read a report about the Decommissioners court hearing last Monday, by someone who was there.
Elijah ‘James’ Smith has been moved back to Lewes prison. Please write and send him your support and solidarity: Elijah Smith, VP 7551, HMP Lewes, 1 Brighton Rd, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1EA

Some good news today on the legal front for the EDO Decommissioners.

The 6 EDO Decommissioners from Bristol, along with the 3 campaigners from Brighton allegedly implicated in the case, were in court in Brighton today, 1 March,  to hear the judge rule on whether or not they could proceed with their defence. That defence is based on the arguement that whatever crime(s) they may have committed were justified by the fact they acted to stop a far greater crime – namely that by decommissioning the EDO MBM/ITT arms factory in Brighton they would contribute to stopping the Israeli state from bombing Gazan civilians during the attack in December 2008/January 2009. First reports from the court indicate the judge has ruled in their favour!Read More