THE decision of the Crown Prosecution Service that no individual will be charged over the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, but that the office of the Commissioner of Police would be charged with an offence under Section 3 and Section 33 of the Health and Safety Act 1974, proves that the de Menezes family will not get justice under capitalism.
The CPS said that since they are sure that the police killers were convinced that de Menezes was a terrorist, who was about to blow up a train, no charge of murder or even manslaughter could be levelled against them. They had considered a further charge of forgery, allegedly the changing of police notes, but apparently there was not enough evidence to prosecute for that offence.
The office of the Commissioner of Police is going to be summonsed for ‘failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare of Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July 2005’.
The basic spin about the thinking of the police at the time that they carried out the murder is the same that the CPS used in the case of Harry Stanley.
He was the Hackney resident who was carrying a chair leg in a plastic bag and was shot dead by the police, whom the CPS said were convinced that Stanley was about to open fire on them.
What is new in the Stockwell killing is the attempt to appease the huge anger of millions of people at the murder, by insulting their intelligence, by using the Health and Safety Act 1974. That this was not adopted to regulate the operations of police death squads and police shoot to kill operations is obvious. It is pathetic that it is being used to try and shield the police and the state.
People are not fools. They know what is happening. This is that the death squads are being given immunity from prosecution. They will all say that the intelligence they were provided with they believed was good, and that they feared that either they or many members of the public were about to be killed.
In the case of Harry Stanley there was, behind the scenes, the threat of a strike by the police armed response units if the policemen who killed him were charged with murder or manslaughter.
There is no doubt that behind the current crime scene there is the same mindset in operation.
The CPS believed there was little prospect of conviction. However, millions of people wanted to see the legality of the police killing tested in a court of law. The trial should have gone ahead.
The CPS opted to let the state off the hook of examination in a court of bourgeois law for a very good reason.
This is that the police death squads would mutiny, and would be supported by the government, who give the armed police ‘101 per cent’ support.
So the official dictum is that they can do no wrong.
Now they will have an official scapegoat, the ‘Office’ of the Commissioner of Police, which allegedly can be held responsible under Health and Safety legislation.
Plus, there is the not unconsiderable bonus that since a trial, if it materialises, is 18 months away, the family will not see the IPCC report.
Since the murder at Stockwell tube we have had the serious wounding and attempted murder in Newham, and there is no doubt more to come.
There is only one way forward out of this situation.
The shoot to kill squads must be disbanded, and the Blair government that is sponsoring state terrorism against Iraqis, Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians must be removed.
The Blair government must be brought down by a general strike and replaced by a workers’ government that will carry out socialist policies.
This must be to smash the capitalist state and disband its death squads and all of its bodies of armed men, as well as expropriating the ruling class, the bankers and bosses that this state serves, and to withdraw all British troops from the Gulf and the Middle East.
Otherwise, we will have a legalised shoot to kill regime, with immunity from prosecution. Already the police officers involved are being returned to duty. No doubt they will be told that they did nothing wrong, the mistake was made in the Office, and that if they receive similar intelligence again they must shoot to kill, with seven shots to the head.
