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A TROOPER and a TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE held for MURDER of IRAQI by ATTORNEY GENERAL - was twice CLEARED by ARMY. The
Daily Mail and its reporter Geoffrey Levy in its campaign to rescue Trooper
Williams from gross injustice after being twice cleared by the Army over the
shooting of an Iraqi is being put on trial for murder here by the same Attorney
General who declared the war legal. But
can civil law apply to soldiers being asked to die in a bloody conflict? Every
day, he looks at his cherished regimental black beret and wonders if he will
ever wear it again. He grew up wanting to be a soldier, joined up at 17 and
loved the life. Now,
aged 21, Trooper Kevin Williams must not put on the uniform of the 2rd Royal Tank
Regiment, which he used to wear with immense pride. Instead,
while his regiment is away in Canada on exercises during a well –earned break
from the constant hazards of Iraq, it is in civilian clothes that Williams
reports every day to the Military Police at Catterick camp in Yorkshire, where
he has been based while awaiting trial by murder. Williams
a quiet boy from nelson in Lancashire, shot and killed a civilian in an
incident near Basra on August 3, 2003.
He was part of a patrol which had stopped a truck suspected of carrying
weapons and attempted an arrest. The
dead man, Hassan Abbad Said, a lawyer with nine children, was shot in the
chest. He was carrying a handgun which
according to his family’s lawyers, he was licensed to carry for protection, as
some people do in this cauldron of kidnap and murder. Trooper
Williams will appear at the Old Bailey on October 25,2004 for him to make his
plea and for a date to be set for the hearing some time next year. By
any standards, it is already a disgracefully long and confusing wait for
justice. When
the black-robed majesty of the British judicial system finally assembles to
hear the evidence in the ancient court-room that tried such as the Yorkshire
Ripper, the Krays and Ian Huntley, it will not be the first, nor the second time, but
the third time that the facts of Trooper Williams’ case have been considered. For Williams has twice been ‘acquitted’ and sent back to his duties as a tank driver. The first investigation
was by the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, the Kings Regiment,
under whose command he was operating as part of a special battle group when the
fatal incident occurred. The Army official examined
witness statements and decided there was no case to answer. The case then went to
Williams’ own Tank regiment Commanding Officer for a more formal investigation.
He not only considered the evidence but also took legal advice. And the Army legal service’s
opinion confirmed the original view that there was no case to answer. So the young soldier
with an unblemished record who had driven his tank into the hell of Iraq at the
very start of the war in March last year-his very first operational
experience-was returned to the war. But clearly, this did not satisfy Attorney General Lord
Goldsmith the Government’s senior law officer,
whose specific
advice to Tony Blair on whether waging war on Iraq was legal or not is still
far from crystal clear. Despite the Army’s dual
ruling in Trooper William’s favour, he [Lord Goldsmith] decided to refer the case to the Crown Prosecution
Service. ‘Can you imagine what it must feel like,’ blasts General
Sir Anthony Walker, 70, ex-Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff and a former CO of
Trooper Williams’ regiment, ‘for a soldier to walk out of a shooting inquiry as a cleared man and
then find himself facing a murder charge under quite a different form of
jurisdiction.’ Yes,
it is possible to imagine what it feels like. Little wonder that when the irresistible
forces of political correctness took over and the CPS was summoned to give
yet another verdict on whether Trooper Williams should be tried for murder or
not, the young soldier sank into such despair that he tried to take his own life with an overdose of sleeping
tablets. ‘The last thing this chap is, is a bull-headed squaddie
with a knife in his teeth,’ says General Walker who has had long talks with
Williams. ‘He’s an articulate,
intelligent thoroughly clean-cut soldier and I would have him on my tank crew
tomorrow. He’s a nice guy. Meanwhile, the dead man’s
family have enlisted the aid of Phil Shiner, the busy Birmingham-based
Left-wing civil rights lawyer who has sparked outrage among soldiers and their
families by launching Legal Aid-funded claims for tens of thousands of pounds’
in compensation on behalf of the families of Iraq civilians allegedly unlawfully
killed by British soldiers. Politicians have accused
Shiner of ‘disgraceful ambulance-chasing’ after it emerged that he sent an
Iraqi employee to the area to look for business. Certainly were Trooper Williams
to be convicted by an Old bailey jury it would result in huge compensation
payout to the dead man’s family. Mr Shiner already has an
affidavit signed by the victim’s sister in which she states that he was driving
both her and her mother to the doctor in Basra at the time of the incident. Of course, few would
deny the dead man’s family compensation for their tragic loss.
* 13th October,2007
So You Want Out Of The EU
THEN WHY NOT SIGN THE RENUNCIATION of EU CITIZENSHIP http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/OptoutDetails from petition creator With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty the people of Britain were given DUAL CITIZENSHIP -both EUROPEAN and BRITISH The extra tier of citizenship was thrust upon the people without their consent -and in many cases knowledge. The PEOPLE of GREAT BRITAIN should be allowed the option of opting out of the EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP if they so wish. The GOVERNMENT will then be able to provide those who have opted out with BRITISH DOCUMENTATION -only such as British (not EU) passports, driving licences and other national documents. EU laws will also NOT APPLY to those who HAVE OPTED OUT OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP *
ADDED NOV 1-2015
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