The inquest that may never be
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News
A very small amendment to the government's major Counter Terrorism Bill
has turned into a very big deal for one family - and gets to the heart
of a battle over secret evidence and the state.
If your relative was killed by a police marksmen, you'd expect to be
able to find out why it happened.
And for the past two months, the family and supporters of Brazilian Jean
Charles de Menezes have sat at the inquest revealing how officers came
to believe the electrician was a suicide bomber.
But Mr de Menezes was not the only such death of 2005.
Another young man was killed by a Metropolitan Police firearms officer
three months earlier, as part of a major drugs investigation.
But Azelle Rodney's inquest has yet to be heard because of the rules
over secret intelligence - and what the family say is the political
football of counter terrorism laws.
On Monday they are pinning their hopes on a last-ditch Parliamentary
attempt to force the government to allow Mr Rodney's inquest to be
heard.
"I just feel totally let down because our attempts to get answers have
turned into such a long and drawn out process," says his mother, Susan
Alexander.
"We're in exactly the same position that we were in when he was killed.
Nothing has changed. I'm just really, really disappointed because my
family has been undermined."
Armed operation
On the evening of 30 April 2005, undercover police teams were following
a car in Edgware in north London. Mr Rodney was one of three men inside
and was sitting in the back seat.
We don't have a death penalty in this country, it's in the
public interest for people to know what the police did and what happened
Susan Alexander
Firearms officers launched a "hard stop" - police jargon for an arrest
led by CO19 armed police, some of the most experienced officers in the
country, because of the possibility of someone getting shot or harmed.
The hired VW Golf was surrounded by police vehicles using a special
manoeuvre designed to minimise the chances of a criminal fleeing the
scene and to reduce the risk to the public.
As drinkers sat at a nearby pub, armed officers disabled the Golf with
special rounds. Mr Rodney was still in the back of the car as officers
approached. He was shot six times by one of the officers. He had wounds
to the head, neck and back. Earlier that day he had spent a leisurely
hour having his hair cut.
The two other men in the car, Wesley Lovell and Frank Graham, were later
jailed for drugs and firearms offences. The suspects had been watched
for at least two days as part of a major investigation.
But Mr Rodney's connection to the other men remains unclear. The trial
heard there had been three guns in the car. Lovell claimed he had
allowed the dead man to use his flat to produce crack cocaine to cancel
out a drugs debt.
Mr Rodney, of course, was not in court to defend himself against the
allegation. Mrs Alexander says her son had no criminal record or contact
with the police and barely knew the two men from whom he had accepted a
lift.
And it's at this point that the family believe the wheels of justice
stopped turning.
Redacted documents
In England and Wales a coroner and a jury investigate when someone had
died at the hands of the state. Most of these are sad but simple cases
of deaths in custody, people accidently hit by emergency vehicles and,
more recently, servicemen and women who were fighting overseas.
CORONERS RULING ON AZELLE RODNEY
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But the documents in Azelle Rodney's case were redacted - parts of the
story had been blacked out.
These sections appear to relate to "intercept" material - secret
intelligence procedures such as phone-taps - and the Independent Police
Complaints Commission told the coroner the missing chunks were relevant
to the circumstances.
Andrew Walker, the coroner, has ruled there can be no inquest for Azelle
Rodney until he can see the redacted information.
But intercept material is never aired in court because the government
says exposing the information to public glare would reveal how it is
gathered - and that would compromise future operations.
And so Mrs Alexander says she understands "two-thirds" of what happened
on 30 April 2005. But the final third - the reasons why the police
suspected her son - remain secret.
Campaigners say the government must allow the inquest to go ahead
because of the ages-old principle that a community must learn from
sudden deaths, particularly those involving the state.
Parliamentarians have tried to introduce a measure specifically designed
to allow the Rodney case to proceed. It would permit a senior judge to
read secret material and show it to a jury and family - but not the
public.
The government responded by whipping MPs through the Commons to defeat
the measure, promising to legislate later.
But it's widely expected that ministers will propose secret inquests,
which exclude families. And it's this very measure that they were forced
to drop from the Counter Terrorism Bill earlier this year after clear
signs that MPs and peers would oppose inquests behind closed doors.
So peers are again trying to reintroduce an Azelle Rodney measure on
Monday. If that fails then Mrs Alexander says she may be forced to go to
the European Court - a lengthy and expensive business.
Ms Alexander's solicitor, Daniel Machover, says failure to hold an
inquest would be a breach of her right under Article 2 of the European
Convention of Human Rights to have a prompt investigation into her son's
death.
But Home office minister Vernon Coaker recently told Parliament that
allowing juries to hear intercept material was unacceptable because
criminals and terrorists would learn how they are being watched.
"It would create the potential for disclosure of all intercept material,
regardless of sensitivity, to a wide number of people, thereby seriously
undermining the ability to ensure the protection from public disclosure
of sensitive intercept material and the capabilities and techniques by
which it was obtained," he said.
"Such disclosure could undermine our ability to prevent future attacks
or affect our ability to curb the activities of dangerous people."
Reports relating to Azelle Rodney's death have naturally focused on the
inescapable fact that he was in a car with three guns and two men later
convicted of serious offences.
But Mrs Alexander says only a public forum of an inquest will allow the
public to see understand why he died - and to see material that she
believes will prove the police made a mistake.
"My son was not a terrorist. He was a British citizen and he had the
same rights as anyone else," she says.
"We don't have a death penalty in this country. It's in the public
interest for people to know what the police did and what happened."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.
Published: 2008/11/24 13:03:41 GMT
Monday, 24 November 2008
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