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103 pages

English

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In January 2003, the British media splashed the news that anti-terror police had disrupted an Al-Qaeda cell, poised to unleash the deadly poison ricin on the capital. Police had reportedly found traces of ricin, as well as a panoply of bomb and poison-making equipment in the cell's 'factory of death' - a shabby flat in north London. 'This danger is present and real, and with us now' announced prime minister Tony Blair.

But, when the 'Ricin plot' came to trial at the Old Bailey, a very different story emerged: there was no ricin and no sophisticated plot. Rarely has a legal case been so shamelessly distorted by government, media and security forces to push their own 'tough on terror' agendas. In this meticulously researched and compellingly written book, Lawrence Archer, the jury foreman at the trial, and journalist Fiona Bawdon, give the definitive story of the ricin plot, the trial and its aftermath.
Foreword by Michael Mansfield QC

Dramatis Personae

Timeline

Significant Addresses

Introduction

1. The Trial

2. The Road from Algeria to the UK

3. Everything Changes on 9/11

4. Mohammed Meguerba

5. Arrests

6. Kamel Bourgass

7. What Ricin?

8. Backlash

9. Legacy

References

Index

Sujets

Disciplines

Language Arts

News

Journalism

Reportage

Informations

Publié par	Pluto Press
Date de parution	07 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783718689
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0498€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Ricin!
Ricin!
The Inside Story of the Terror Plot that Never Was
Lawrence Archer
and
Fiona Bawdon
Foreword by
Michael Mansfield QC
First published 2010 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon 2010
The right of Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN     978 0 7453 2928 4     Hardback
ISBN     978 0 7453 2927 7     Paperback
ISBN     978 1 8496 4550 8     pdf
ISBN     978 1 7837 1869 6     Kindle
ISBN     978 1 7837 1868 9     ePub
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, 33 Livonia Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9JB, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
This book is dedicated to the British jury system
Contents
List of Photographs
Foreword by Michael Mansfield QC
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1
The Trial
2
The Road from Algeria to the UK
3
Everything Changes on 9/11
4
Mohammed Meguerba
5
Arrests
6
Kamel Bourgass
7
What Ricin?
8
Backlash
9
Legacy
Appendices
A. Dramatis Personae
B. Timeline
C. Significant Addresses
Notes
Index
List of Photographs
(between pages 83–92)
1 .
Daily Mirror front page, 8 January 2003.
2 .
Kamel Bourgass, the only one of the five ricin defendants to be convicted.
3 .
The shabby flat above a chemist shop in Wood Green, north London, labelled by the media the ‘factory of death’, following the police raid on 5 January 2003.
4 .
The exterior of flats in Crumpsall Lane, Manchester.
5 .
A police officer places flowers outside the Crumpsall Lane property following the tragic death of Stephen Oake.
6 .
Abu Hamza al-Masri, the firebrand preacher associated with the Finsbury Park Mosque.
7 .
The Finsbury Park Mosque in north London.
8 .
Blackstock Road, known as ‘Little Algeria’.
9 .
A Metropolitan Police handout photo, showing AA and other batteries, torch bulbs, superglue, a headset and various other items.
10 .
Items recovered from the Wood Green raid.
11 .
Acquitted defendant Mouloud Sihali.
Foreword
Just occasionally you read something which stops you in your tracks. It startles. It reveals. It provokes. This is one such book.
In this age of information overload, of quick-fix sound bites, one event comes fast upon another. Memories fade. Lessons are not learnt. Fact becomes fiction. Myth merges into a mélange of accepted wisdom.
In this instance a myth was perpetrated and perpetuated by the media and by senior UK and US politicians alike. It spread like wildfire, fanning the flames of fear and fuelling the call to arms. The repercussions at all levels – for world peace, democratic accountability and the rule of law – continue to reverberate right through to the present. It concerns a ricin plot that never was. Cutting through this quagmire to restore truth, and its handmaiden justice, from the trappings of prejudice and preconception takes tenacity and fortitude. Above all it requires an independence of mind and spirit to ensure that ordinary common sense prevails. The English Common Law has habitually invoked the apocryphal ‘man/woman on the Clapham Omnibus’ as a paradigm for these purposes.
In real life we use a jury in the criminal courts to perform this role. A few (12) of our number, representing a randomly selected cross-section of the public, are entrusted to examine the evidence and pass judgement in the form of a verdict. They provide the ultimate protective bastion against arbitrary and overweening governance and they have been doing so for centuries. No surprise, therefore, that their existence has been constantly under threat from successive governments.
Who better, then, to defend this vital civic duty (to bear witness to their essential and enduring integrity) but a voice of conscience from the jury itself.
The pages that follow are a remarkable and extraordinary testament to the fundamental principles of justice. It would have been far easier to remain silent, to walk away at the end of the trial, job done. But conscience would not allow it. The result was a voice of reasoned protest, and an extended hand of friendship and support for men who had been acquitted of terrorism.
Such action by members of a jury is well beyond the call of duty, and so far as I’m aware unprecedented in British legal history. On the other hand English juries have a fine and illustrious tradition of conscientious objection. At the Old Bailey where this trial took place there is a commemorative plaque to another jury. Two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead, were tried in 1670 for sedition and unlawful assembly. Despite increasingly strenuous exhortations by the trial judge the jury refused to convict. They were locked up for two nights, starved and denied tobacco (for some a fate worse than death!). Led by a juror called Bushell they held out and were fined for their intransigence. Four refused to pay the fine and remained in prison for seven months. On appeal they won the right of juries to return verdicts according to their consciences.
This book, however, is not so much about the verdict, because jurors are rightly prohibited from disclosing their deliberations, but more about how their verdict was received and about broader issues raised by the case as a whole. Coincidentally the Chilcot Inquiry has begun to address strikingly similar points, although so far the details of this trial have not surfaced.
There is an array of disturbing questions of public importance which are thrown up by the narrative and which have yet to be answered:
1.
Why did the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, fail to correct his misrepresentations about the existence of ‘ricin’ in the run up to the Iraq War? (cf. WMD and the September 2002 dossier)
2.
How did Colin Powell come to adopt the same misrepresentations before the UN?
3.
How is it that Prime Minister Gordon Brown also relied on the same misrepresentations in his arguments about the war on terror?
4.
How did highly prejudicial and false stories about gas and poison conspiracies come to be printed in the media?
5.
How did the Home Secretary David Blunkett fail to recognise that his adverse comments in a radio interview might compromise a fair trial?
6.
On what basis did the Metropolitan Police and the Home Secretary Charles Clarke come to use the ricin case as part of the justification for 90-day detention?
7.
To what extent was the source information in the case subject to strict scrutiny in order to exclude any risk of contamination by torture?
8.
Why was the jury’s verdict subverted by returning the acquitted men to detention in Belmarsh under the SIAC regime?
All these questions have serious implications for the integrity of our political and judicial systems.
For me, however, it is the last question which inflicts the most damage. There is simply no point in engaging a jury to determine one of the most serious charges in the criminal calendar, only for its conclusions to be disregarded. The innuendo at the time, made by both politicians and the media, was largely that the jury got it wrong. So the defendants get locked up again on the same basis as the trial allegation – only this time without trial.
Such a process flagrantly undermines the rule of law and public confidence just as much as the government’s decision to go to war in Iraq without a second UN resolution. It is time that the arrogance of such power is severely curbed. It is to be sincerely hoped that the courage of the few will motivate the many.
Michael Mansfield QC
March 2010
Acknowledgements
Lawrence Archer would like to give sincere and heartfelt thanks to the following people:
To my co-writer Fiona Bawdon, for her skill, patience and unswerving commitment to the project.
To my family for their love and loyal support.
To the cleared defendants from the ricin trial, for their time and candid interviews. My particular thanks to Mouloud Sihali and Mustapha Taleb.
To the solicitors, barristers and legal teams who have provided interviews and assistance. In particular Gareth Peirce, Matthew Ryder and Natalia Garcia.
To Michael Mansfield QC for writing the Foreword and his support for this project from its earliest stages.
To the unsung and unassuming members of various voluntary human rights organisations, including Peace and Justice in East London and CAMPACC, for their unstinting help.
To Victoria Brittain, Simon Israel, Livio Zilli, Saleyha Ahsan and Andy Worthington, for their help and invaluable advice.
To some of my fellow jurors, who wish to stay anonymous, for their support.
Lastly to Trudie Burton, for her endless encouragement and belief.
Fiona Bawdon would like to thank the following people:
My family – Tim, Caleb and Saul – for everything, always. Lawrence Archer, for putting his head above the parapet (and keeping it there).
Robert Brown and Gemma Tombs at Corker Binning for their expertise, generously and speedily given.
Wesley Gryk for his advice and help with Chapter 3 .
Introduction
One Sunday morning, almost exactly a year after the en