Met police’s deputy assistant commissioner admits to Commons committee that both units broke internal guidelines

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, criticised the Met police for not apologising for the ‘gruesome’ practice. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Police chiefs have admitted that a second undercover unit stole the identities of dead children in the late 1990s or even more recently in a series of operations to infiltrate political activists.

Growing evidence of the scale of the unauthorised technique – nicknamed the “jackal run” after its fictional depiction in Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal – now means the number of families affected could total more than 100.

The Metropolitan police’s deputy assistant commissioner Patricia Gallan told a parliamentary inquiry that both secret police units broke internal guidelines when they employed the technique, which MPs criticised as “gruesome” and “very distressing”.

She had been called to give evidence to the Commons home affairs committee following the Guardian’s disclosures that the Metropolitan police had secretly used the tactic without consulting or informing the children’s parents in order to bolster their fake persona when operating undercover.

But, despite mounting concern over the practice, she declined to apologise to the families of the children until Scotland Yard had completed an internal investigation.

She said: “I do absolutely appreciate the concern and I understand the upset and why people are very distressed about this.”

Keith Vaz, chairman of the committee, told her: “I’m disappointed that you’ve not used the opportunity to be able to send out a message to those parents who have children who may have had their identity being used that the Met is actually sorry that this has happened.”

In another development, a family who believe that their son’s identity was stolen as recently as 2003 has lodged a complaint against Scotland Yard. Barbara Shaw, the mother of a baby who died after two days, is pressing the police to reveal the truth and to issue an apology. She said she was deeply upset to discover that her child’s identity was used in this way. “He is still my baby. I’ll never forget him,” Shaw said.

The Guardian has disclosed that, over three decades, undercover police officers in a covert unit known as the special demonstration squad had been hunting through birth and death records to find children who had died in infancy. Once they found a suitable candidate, they then created an alter ego to infiltrate political groups for up to 10 years. They were issued with official records such as national insurance numbers and driving licences to make their personas more credible, in case the campaigners in the groups they were spying on became suspicious and began to investigate them.

The SDS adopted the technique after it was founded in 1968. The evidence suggested that the unit stopped using it in the mid-1990s when officials records became more computerised.

However it now appears that the tactic has been used more recently by a second unit which started operating in 1999.

The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), which is still running, was also tasked with gathering intelligence on protesters.

Gallan told the committee that the practice “has been from the evidence I have seen confined to two units, the SDS and the NPOIU”.

Pressed by MPs on whether the squads had gone “rogue” and had gone out of control, Gallan said they were operating at the time outside of police’s guidelines for undercover operations. “From what I have seen, the practices at that time would not be following the national guidelines.” She said the units had departed from the accepted practices, but she had yet to find out why.

MPs also heard allegations that a suspected undercover police officer stole the identity of the dead child, Rod Richardson, when he posed as an anticapitalist protester for three years.

Jules Carey, the lawyer for the family, told the committee : “I am instructed by one family who have a son who was born and died in 1973 and we believe that a police officer used the name Rod Richardson which is the name of the child and was deployed as an undercover police officer in about 2000 to 2003 using that name and infiltrated various political groups.

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 February 2013 21.15 GMT

Find this story at 5 February 2013 
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Agenten van de Britse Metropolitan Police, de grootste politiedienst van het
land, hebben tussen 1968 en 1994 de identiteit van ongeveer 80 dode kinderen gestolen. Ze gebruikten de aliassen bij undercoveroperaties zonder dat de ouders van de overleden kinderen op de hoogte waren van deze werkwijze. Dat blijkt uit een onderzoek van The Guardian.

Het lijkt op een spionagethriller maar over het Kanaal was het gedurende drie decennia een vaak gebruikte manier om personen te volgen: de identiteit stelen van kinderen die het leven hadden gelaten in een ongeval of kinderen die bezweken waren aan de gevolgen van een slepende ziekte.
1968

De praktijken zouden begonnen zijn in 1968 met als doel het bespioneren van groeperingen die protesteerden tegen onder meer kernenergie, racisme, oorlog en het kapitalisme. Agenten van de Metropolitan Police gaven leden van de speciale eenheid Special Demonstration Squad de toestemming om de aliassen te gebruiken. De agenten kregen zelfs (valse) officiële documenten als paspoorten en rijbewijzen en gingen kijken bij de huizen waar de kinderen waren opgegroeid.

Het hele proces werd “jackal run” genoemd, naar de roman ‘The Day of the Jackal’, waarin auteur Frederick Forsyth zulke praktijken omschrijft.
Stasi

Een voormalig lid van de Special Demonstration Squad – de dienst werd in 2008 ontmanteld – vergelijkt de praktijken zelfs met die van de Stasi, de geheime dienst van de DDR.

…

05/02 Buitenland

Find this story at 5 February 2013

©1994-2013 Concentra Media Groep N.V.

A former Scotland Yard officer who infiltrated groups of environmental “terrorists” has been dragged into a high-profile investigation in France over claims he provided “fantasist” information leading to 10 activists’ arrest.

Mark Kennedy, 42, who spent seven years posing as “ecowarrior” Mark Stone, was exposed as a police spy in Britain last year following the collapse of a prosecution against environmental activists.

During his undercover life, he visited 11 countries on more than 40 occasions, fielding information to the UK’s National Public Order Intelligence Unit, now the National Domestic Extremism Unit.

Since he was unmasked, 20 convictions in cases he was involved in against activists have been quashed in the court of appeal. He was also sued by three female eco-activists for being “duped” into having sexual relations with a policeman.

Now his name has cropped up in the investigation into French activists over an alleged anarchist plot to overthrow the state.

Their lawyers insist that the investigation is unfairly based on information Mr Kennedy allegedly provided to his UK police unit, including claims the activists discussed and “practised” building improvised explosive devices.
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The French leftists are under formal investigation for allegedly sabotaging high-speed train lines – seen as a high-profile symbol of the French state – in November 2008, causing massive delays but no injuries. They deny any wrongdoing.

Mr Kennedy’s role in the inquiry could see the case quashed.

The so-called “Tarnac affair” erupted in November 2008 when 100 French police raided the tiny rural village of Tarnac, arresting anti-capitalists running a communal farm and village shop.

The government of then President Nicolas Sarkozy alleged they were dangerous “anarcho-terrorists” hoping to overthrow the state.

French sociology graduate Julien Coupat was accused of being the group’s “ringleader” and author of a seminal work, The Coming Insurrection.

It has now emerged that British police helped French prosecutors build a case against the campaigners by confirming Mr Coupat’s presence at two activists’ meetings in France and one in New York. In one of them, it said, “the making of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) was both discussed and practised”.

…

By Henry Samuel, Paris

7:17PM GMT 08 Nov 2012

Find this story at 8 November 2012

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013

Pour avoir refusé de donner son ADN aux officiers de l’anti-terrorisme, Charles Torres, « le forgeron de l’affaire Tarnac », lavé de tous soupçons depuis, est passé devant la justice. Le délibéré sera rendu par le tribunal de grande instance de Rouen le 6 mars 2013.

Mercredi 6 janvier 2013, Charles Torres était jugé pour refus de se soumettre au prélèvement d’ADN. Prélèvement demandé par la cellule anti-terroriste lors d’une garde-à-vue justifiée par sa possible appartenance à l’affaire Tarnac. Au moment de cette garde-à-vue, le 23 février 2012, Charles Torres, forgeron de profession, est soupçonné d’être l’artisan des crochets qui auront servi en 2008 à saboter des caténaires de la SNCF.

Le palais de justice de Rouen accueille donc le jour de l’audience du « Forgeron de Tarnac », tous ses soutiens, sa famille et une bonne dizaine de journalistes alléchés par cette audience connexe à l’affaire Tarnac. Quelques policiers, arnaché de gilets pare-balles et de talkie-walkies. Normal, c’est le procès d’une personne qui soupçonnée début 2012 d’association de malfaiteurs dans une entreprise terroriste.

La juge aura dû, en début d’audience faire taire le public venu en nombre pour soutenir Charles Torres. Celui-ci a souhaité lire devant le tribunal « sa plaidoirie » car il n’est « pas très à l’aise à l’oral ». L’homme de 28 ans, spécialisé dans la forge médiévale, a commencé son diatribe timidement, posant la question qui le taraude : « Pourquoi suis-je ici devant vous aujourd’hui ? Je ne le sais pas, personne ne le sait. À part peut-être, l’officier de la DCRI que j’ai vu arpenter ce tribunal aujourd’hui, avec une veste de moto. »

Le forgeron a eu à cœur de pousser les traits d’ironie, malgré sa gêne à parler publiquement. Il s’est même retourné une fois vers l’assemblée pour chercher du regard un soutien. « Adressez-vous au tribunal », le reprendra la juge. Après avoir raconté sa garde à vue, Charles Torres, cultivé et aux mots littéraires, donne ses hypothèses sur les raisons de sa présence devant le tribunal, s’appuyant sur sa connaissance du droit, de l’histoire et sa culture politique. « Dans refus de se soumettre au prélèvement biologique, il y a refus de se soumettre », commence-t-il, « On incrimine ici ma volonté. »

Le forgeron de Roncherolles-sur-le-Vivier explique ensuite pourquoi il s’est refusé à ce prélèvement d’ADN : « Je m’oppose au fichage génétique. » Il rappelle l’historique du Fichier national automatisé des empreintes génétiques (Fnaeg) initialement mis en place en 1998 pour ficher les délinquants sexuels, donc les personnes jugées coupables par la justice. Voulant prouver le ridicule de sa présence au tribunal, il se joue de l’adage « Qui vole un œuf, vole un bœuf » : « Qui vole un œuf, viole un bœuf. »

Sans désarmer, Charles Torres continue de justifier son refus de se soumettre, rappelant l’affaire Élodie Kulik, violée puis assassinée (2002). En 2011, les gendarmes parviennent à confondre l’un de ses agresseurs grâce à l’ADN de son père déjà fiché. Le forgeron s’appuiera sur ce détournement du Fnaeg : « Aujourd’hui, donner mon ADN, c’est donner celui de mon frère jumeau, mes parents et mes descendants ». Il conclut : « L’ADN est un instrument de contrôle. » Ce quart d’heure de discours est applaudi par l’assemblée.

Contre Charles Torres, le procureur a requis une peine « d’avertissement » : un mois de prison avec sursis. Ce qui ne suffit évidemment pas à Me William Bourdon et Me Marie Dosé, avocats de la défense. Ils s’appuient sur la pauvreté du dossier entre les mains du tribunal de Rouen. « Le tribunal de grande instance de Nanterre vous a confié un dossier de misère. Ce que vous savez, c’est ce que la presse vous a dit et ce nous vous disons », argumente Me Dosé.

Au dossier, quelques procès-verbaux, parfois non datés, ou des notifications de mise en garde à vue de Charles Torres. Le tribunal n’a pas accès au dossier de l’affaire Tarnac dans lequel figurent les raisons pour lesquelles le forgeron a été soumis à une garde à vue. « On vous empêche de vérifier s’il y avait des raisons plausibles pour le détenir » et donc pour lui demander son ADN.

Et Me Dosé d’avancer : « Dans la procédure Tarnac, Charles Torres n’est rien sauf les conséquences de son refus » de se soumettre au prélèvement biologique. Dans leur plaidoirie, les deux avocats du forgeron frôlent la violation de l’instruction judiciaire, sans jamais vraiment tomber dedans. « Les policiers mentent au tribunal, il n’y avait aucune raison pour le mettre en garde à vue, vous devez sanctionner cette manipulation judiciaire », reprend Me Bourdon qui considère le dossier Charles Torres comme « un vide intersidéral ».

Le tribunal rendra son délibéré le 6 mars 2013.

L’affaire du Forgeron soulève une question de constitutionnalité

Charles Torrès est jugé pour avoir refusé de donner son ADN aux policiers de l’anti-terrorisme dans le cadre de l’affaire Tarnac. Pour aller plus loin, ses avocats ont tenté de mettre en doute la constitutionnalité du prélèvement ADN à répétition et du fichage de tout un chacun. Le délibéré sera rendu le 6 mars 2013.

Le procès de Charles Torres, s’est ouvert ce mercredi 6 janvier 2013, au tribunal de grande instance de Rouen. Il est jugé pour avoir refusé de donner son ADN lors d’une garde à vue dans le cadre de l’affaire Tarnac. Ses avocats, Me William Bourdon et Me Marie Dosé, tous les deux au dossier de l’affaire Tarnac, essaieront de poser une question prioritaire de constitutionnalité (QPC).

Entrée en vigueur en 2010, la QPC permet de mettre en doute la constitutionnalité d’une loi déjà promulguée. Elle peut être posée par n’importe quel citoyen. On la pose devant un tribunal qui décide ou non de la transmettre à la cour de cassation.

Dans l’affaire de Charles Torres, ses avocats mettent en doute la constitutionnalité de l’article 706-56 du code de procédure pénal. Cet article encadre le prélèvement de l’empreinte biologique. Pour Me Bourdon, le dossier de Charles Torres, si petit et si peu extraordinaire soit-il, permettrait « d’envoyer un message puissant aux législateurs ». L’avocat remet en question l’alinéa 4 de l’article. Cet alinéa qui permet qu’en cas de refus de prélèvement, les officiers de police judiciaire peuvent récupérer l’ADN s’il est détaché du corps. « Lorsque Charles Torres refuse de se soumettre, il ne sait pas, que dans son dos, ou plutôt dans ses cheveux, on prélèvera la particule magique », plaide Me Bourdon, « S’il avait su que les policiers de la Sdat pouvaient faire cela, il aurait pu ajuster son comportement ». Ici, l’avocat pointe du doigt la faille de la loi qui peut conduire un citoyen à s’auto-incriminer sans être en mesure de se défendre.

L’avocat parle aussi « d’un cambriolage de l’enveloppe corporelle« , qui porte atteinte au droit de chaque citoyen de disposer de son corps. Enfin, pour plaider le dépôt de cette QPC, Me Bourdon pointe le « laisser-aller, la paresse » des policiers qui ne prennent pas le temps de vérifier si la personne concernée est déjà fichée qui peuvent conduire à une succession de prélèvements ADN sur un même citoyen.

Sans compter que le tribunal de Nanterre qui s’est dessaisi en 2012 de cette affaire, a omis de prévenir le tribunal de Rouen que la justice était bien en possession de l’ADN de Charles Torres… jugé pour avoir refusé de le donner.

La procureur refuse la QPC au motif que l’article 706-56 du code de procédure pénale aura déjà été jugé constitutionnel, dans sa globalité, par la cour de cassation. Le tribunal est allé dans ce sens et a refusé de transmettre la question prioritaire de constitutionnalité. Le procès de Charles Torres a donc bien eu lieu mercredi 6 février et les débats se sont donc poursuivis pour celui qui risque 15’000 euros d’amende et un an de prison ferme.

Publié par des larbins de la maison Poulaga (Zoé Lauwereys, Grand-Rouen.com, 7 février 2013)

Rencontre avec le « Forgeron » de Tarnac

Charles Torres a été « enlevé » par la police début 2012 dans le cadre de l’affaire Tarnac. Il est soupçonné, à ce moment là, d’être complice du sabotage de caténaires en 2008. Aucun fait n’aura été retenu contre lui. Pourtant, il est jugé mercredi 6 février 2013 au tribunal de grande instance de Rouen pour avoir refusé son ADN au moment de la perquisition.

Nous l’avons rencontré la veille de son procès pour refus de prélèvement génétique du 6 février 2013 au tribunal d’instance de Rouen. Avec son pull marin, ses cheveux en bataille, sa moustache et sa chevalière rehaussée d’une pierre blanche, il nous rejoint à la Conjuration des Fourneaux au 149 rue Saint-Hilaire. Le restaurant soutient Charles dans ses déboires judiciaires. Il nous raconte ces trente heures de garde à vue pendant lesquelles il a refusé de parler.

Ce matin du 23 février 2012, Charles Torres dort dans sa chambre, chez ses parents, à Roncherolles-sur-le-Vivier, près de Darnétal. À 28 ans, il y revient de temps en temps pour travailler. Son père, monteur en bronze, lui a installé dans son atelier, une forge pour qu’il puisse exercer son activité d’auto-entrepreneur forgeron. Il est 8 heures du matin quand une trentaine de policier de la sous-direction de l’anti-terrorisme (Sdat) frappe à la porte. « On a eu de la chance, il n’était pas 6 heures du matin et ils n’ont pas défoncé la porte », ironise celui que la presse surnommera le Forgeron dans l’affaire dite « de Tarnac ». Ce matin-là, les policiers de l’anti-terrorisme viennent perquisitionner. Ils pensent avoir trouvé celui qui a fabriqué les crochets en fer à béton responsables du sabotage de caténaires de la SNCF en 2008.

Pour ces faits, qui deviennent très vite l’affaire de Tarnac, dix personnes ont été mises en examen, pour « association de malfaiteurs en relation avec une entreprise terroriste » et « dégradations en réunion en relation avec une entreprise terroriste ». Les principaux accusés dans cette affaire sont Julien Coupat et sa compagne Yldune Lévy. Le rapport entre Tarnac et Charles Torres ? Ce dernier se l’explique facilement. « Je suis colocataire dans une maison, rue de Constantine, à Rouen, où plusieurs habitants, ont été mis en examen en 2008. Mais je n’étais même pas un des potes de Julien Coupat. Tarnac ce n’est même pas une bande de copains. Concrètement, on me soupçonnait d’avoir un comportement plus ou moins subversif d’un point de vue politique. » Charles avoue même ne pas connaître vraiment le dossier Tarnac, seulement ce que les mis en examen lui auront dit et ce qu’il aura lu dans les journaux. Il délivre son analyse : « Tarnac est devenu un groupe suite aux accusations. Il a fallu donner un cadre, d’où le nom. Ce qui fait que tu es dans le dossier ou pas, c’est ta place dans le scénario de la police. »

Quatre ans après le début de l’affaire de Tarnac, devenu au fil des années un bourbier judiciaire, la Sdat pense donc avoir trouvé un nouveau complice du sabotage. Ce 23 février 2012, « des flics de haut-vol » fouillent donc la maison des parents du forgeron après lui avoir signifié sa mise en garde à vue. Une garde à vue qui durera 35 heures. La perquisition aura fait beaucoup rire Charles qui avoue avoir eu « envie de plaisanter » mais s’être retenu par « peur qu’ils me prennent au premier degré ». « Ils ont fouillé toute la maison, ont retourné ma chambre, ont scruté mes bouquins, mon bureau, mes affaires de fac. Mais ils n’ont rien saisi dans ma chambre », se rappelle-t-il. « Pour prouver l’association de malfaiteurs et me lier aux mis en examen de Tarnac, ils ont saisi de vieux téléphones portables. » Rien non plus n’aura été saisi dans la forgerie, pourtant l’endroit le plus à même de receler des indices du sabotage. Et pourquoi pas quatre ans plus tard ? Charles se rappelle d’un détail qu’il raconte goguenard. « Dans la chambre de mon frère, ils ont trouvé deux cagoules trois trous. Elles avaient été utilisées pour l’enterrement de vie de garçon d’un copain », rit-il encore.

Charles Torres préférait ne pas être pris en photo.

La perquisition terminée, les policiers le menottent et l’emmènent « à 200 kilomètres/heure » à Levallois-Perret, dans les Hauts-de-Seine. Avant d’atteindre le siège de la Sdat, il rapporte avoir eu les yeux cachés par un masque de sommeil. « Là, j’ai senti que l’on descendait de cinq étages sous terre. Arrivés dans les locaux, on est passés de sas de sécurité en sas de sécurité »… jusqu’à la salle de garde à vue. Pendant ces 30 heures de garde à vue, Charles refusera de répondre aux questions : « J’ai décliné mon état-civil, sinon j’ai répondu des blagues ». La meilleure solution pour quelqu’un qui ne sait pas ce qu’on lui reproche, mis à part la vague « association de malfaiteurs ». « Ils n’avaient rien pour me mettre en garde-à-vue, il n’était pas question pour moi de leur donner de quoi me mettre en examen ». L’ancien étudiant en histoire se rappelle de quelques questions posées par la police. « Ils m’ont demandé ce que je pensais de la société capitaliste marchande ou quelles étaient mes opinions politiques », évoque-t-il. En lui présentant des photos des crochets utilisés pour saboter les caténaires, on lui aura même demandé s’il les avait fabriqués. Charles répondra avec l’ironie qui lui semble chère : « Vous m’amenez le modèle et je vous fais un devis ».

En fin de garde à vue, on lui demandera de donner son ADN, justifié par « des motifs graves ou concordants » dans l’affaire pour laquelle il était entendu. Chose qu’il refusera. Par conviction. « Je n’ai pas envie de faire partie d’un fichier ADN des catégories politiques », affirme-t-il. Pour lutter contre le « flicage », il refuse aussi d’avoir un téléphone ou une carte bancaire. Ce qu’il ne sait pas, à ce moment-là, c’est que la police a pris soin de nettoyer de fond en comble la salle de garde à vue, revèle Laurent Borredon, dans Le Monde du mardi 5 février 2013 : « Ce matin-là, les policiers ont nettoyé à fond les locaux de garde à vue, à l’aide d’une solution hydroalcoolique. Le bureau et le sol. Dans quelques instants, Charles Torrès va être entendu pour la quatrième fois. Les policiers souhaitent récupérer son ADN et il faut que tout soit immaculé. » Selon Le Monde qui s’est procuré le procès-verbal de la garde à vue, Charles fait bien en sorte ce jour-là de consommer « sa brique de jus d’orange sans en utiliser la paille » puis d’en « laver soigneusement l’extérieur, de sorte à n’y laisser aucune trace biologique. » Charles aura aussi mangé sans utiliser de couverts, « directement au moyen de ses doigts », pour être sûr de ne laisser aucune trace. Les policiers récupèrent tout de même quelques cheveux sur le sol du local où il était interrogé.

L’absurde du procès du mercredi 6 février 2013 ? La justice est en possession de l’ADN de Charles Torres mais on lui reproche de ne pas avoir voulu le donner. Il risque 15’000 euros d’amende et un an de prison ferme. Sur son blog, il appelle ses soutiens à « venir rire » au TGI de Rouen à 13h30, « parce qu’on ne peut que se réjouir de chaque humiliation que l’antiterrorisme s’inflige à lui-même ».

Publié par des larbins de la maison Poulaga (Zoé Lauwereys, Grand-Rouen.com, 6 février 2013)

Tarnac : un homme jugé pour refus de donner son ADN, déjà prélevé à son insu

Les policiers de la sous-direction antiterroriste (SDAT) de la police judiciaire n’ont pas peur de la contradiction. Le 24 février 2012, à 11h15, ils ont recueilli l’ADN de Charles Torrès, 28 ans, à son insu. Puis, à 11h35, ils ont lancé une procédure contre le jeune homme gardé à vue dans le cadre de l’affaire de Tarnac pour… refus de prélèvement génétique. Charles Torrès doit être jugé, mercredi 6 février, par le tribunal correctionnel de Rouen. Il risque, au maximum, un an de prison et 15’000 euros d’amende. À la suite de sa garde à vue, il avait été relâché sans charge, mais cela n’empêche pas d’être dans l’obligation de laisser son ADN. Il suffit qu’existent des “indices graves ou concordants” contre la personne entendue, indique le code de procédure pénale.

Ce matin-là, les policiers ont nettoyé à fond les locaux de garde à vue, à l’aide d’une solution hydroalcoolique. Le bureau et le sol. Dans quelques instants, Charles Torrès va être entendu pour la quatrième fois. Les policiers souhaitent récupérer son ADN et il faut que tout soit immaculé. Les enquêteurs veulent vérifier si le jeune homme, interpellé la veille près de Rouen, n’a pas forgé les crochets qui ont servi à saboter des lignes de TGV, à l’automne 2008.

“DÉLOYAUTÉ”

Charles Torrès est aussi prudent que les policiers sont méticuleux : il a “consommé sa brique de jus d’orange sans en utiliser la paille, puis en [a] soigneusement lavé l’extérieur, de sorte à n’y laisser aucune trace biologique (…). À l’heure du déjeuner, il a été constaté qu’il mangeait sans utiliser de couverts, directement au moyen de ses doigts”, note le lieutenant de la SDAT, dans son procès-verbal, que Le Monde a pu consulter.

Mais le stratagème réussit : les hommes de la police technique et scientifique parviennent à récupérer “les prélèvements de traces de contact” là où il “a apposé ses mains”. Encore mieux, “à l’aplomb du siège où [il] s’est assis, des cheveux jonchent le sol”. Précis, le policier indique “que la présence de ces cheveux au sol résulte de la propension qu’a manifestée Charles Torrès à se passer (nerveusement) les mains dans les cheveux”. Trente heures de garde à vue dans les locaux de la SDAT, c’est un peu stressant…

Comment justifier une procédure pour refus de prélèvement d’ADN quand on vient de le recueillir ? En faisant comme si de rien n’était : le procureur qui poursuit puis les magistrats qui vont juger le dossier “ADN” n’ont accès qu’aux pièces du dossier Tarnac que la SDAT veut bien leur transmettre. Le PV de recueil de traces génétiques a été opportunément exclu. Au contraire, une enquêtrice justifie la procédure en assurant que le prélèvement demandé à Charles Torrès “aurait utilement permis de déterminer le profil génétique de l’intéressé aux fins de comparaison avec les empreintes génétiques à ce jour non identifiées”.

“Il s’agit d’un symptôme de plus de la déloyauté qui contamine tout le dossier”, estime Me William Bourdon, l’un des avocats de Charles Torrès. Il souhaite déposer une question prioritaire de constitutionnalité, mercredi. Pour lui, les articles de loi sur les prélèvements d’ADN sont “défaillants” face au principe de libre disposition de son corps : l’officier de police judiciaire n’a pas d’obligation d’informer qu’il peut y avoir un prélèvement clandestin, puis que ce prélèvement a eu lieu — ce qui interdit tout recours — et, enfin, il n’est pas obligé de vérifier que le gardé à vue est déjà fiché, avec le risque d’une multiplication des prélèvements.

Et la comparaison des empreintes génétiques ? Au final, elle n’a rien donné.

Publié par des larbins de la maison Poulaga (Laurent Borredon, LeMonde.fr, 5-6 février 2013)

Pourquoi j’ai refusé de livrer mon ADN

Le 6 février 2013, Charles Torres comparaît au tribunal de Rouen pour avoir refusé le prélèvement de son ADN lors d’une garde à vue de 35 heures début 2012. Forgeron, on le soupçonnait de complicité dans l’affaire de Tarnac et d’avoir fabriqué les crochets qui servirent à bloquer des TGV en 2008.

Le 23 février 2012, je fis bien malgré moi une entrée fracassante dans l’affaire dite « de Tarnac ». Une escouade de policiers de la Sous-Direction antiterroriste (SDAT), avec à leur tête le médiatique juge Fragnoli, vint me sortir du lit de bon matin. Bien qu’habitant la Seine-Maritime, je devins ce jour-là « le forgeron de Tarnac ». À défaut de pouvoir établir le moindre lien entre les mis en examen et les fameux crochets, le juge voulait à toute force insinuer un lien entre eux et quelqu’un qui aurait pu les fabriquer. Je fus donc, avec mon père de 86 ans, soupçonné le temps d’une garde à vue d’avoir confectionné les crochets qui servirent à bloquer des TGV une nuit de novembre 2008.

On sait que le storytelling antiterroriste ne s’embarrasse guère de la vraisemblance, et les différents articles parus dans la presse lors de mon arrestation le reproduisirent fidèlement. Il n’y eut d’ailleurs à peu près personne pour mentionner le fait que je fus libéré au bout de 35 heures sans la moindre charge ; et ni le juge ni les policiers ne me présentèrent leurs excuses pour m’avoir ainsi kidnappé sans raison valable. Faute d’excuses, je pensais qu’ils auraient à cœur de se faire oublier pour ces 35 heures de séquestration légale. Sur ce point, c’est bien moi qui me suis trompé.

Comme je le précisais plus haut, des amis harcelés par l’antiterrorisme, j’en ai quelques-uns, à Rouen comme à Tarnac. Je lis la presse aussi. De ce fait, je sais comme tout un chacun que tout ce que l’on peut déclarer dans une garde à vue a vocation à être déformé et utilisé contre vous. Je réservais donc mes réponses aux questions des policiers sur mes idées politiques au juge en charge de l’enquête. Malheureusement, il ne crut pas bon de me recevoir. Quelques jours plus tard, je fis tout de même l’effort de lui écrire afin de ne laisser aucun doute quant à l’erreur manifeste que représentait mon arrestation. Le jour même où cette missive devait paraître, le juge, qui allait être dessaisi, la recouvrit de l’annonce de son autodessaisissement. Il fit ainsi d’une pierre deux coups, et la missive ne parut jamais.

Pas plus que je n’avais de raison d’être en garde à vue à Levallois-Perret, n’avais-je de raison de livrer mon ADN à la police, qui de toute façon alla le récupérer lamentablement sous la forme d’un cheveu laissé sur le sol d’une salle d’interrogatoire. Je refusai donc. Faut pas pousser.

Mais refuser de donner son ADN est un délit, en soi. C’est-à-dire que même lorsque l’on vous l’a pris malgré vous, qu’on l’a analysé, qu’il vous a dédouané et que vous êtes à l’évidence lavé des soupçons qui avaient justifié qu’on vous le demande, vous êtes encore et toujours coupable d’avoir refusé. C’est cela la loi sur l’ADN, et c’est pour cela que je comparaîtrai au tribunal de Rouen ce mercredi 6 février.

De prime abord, on pourrait penser que je suis, ici, victime de l’un des effets pervers d’une loi mal formulée et qu’il suffirait d’un peu de bon sens pour que tout rentre dans l’ordre. C’est tout le contraire que mon procès révèle.

On peut ainsi remettre en question l’efficacité de l’ADN, et la mystification qui consiste à corréler une trace souvent partielle avec un acte. On peut évoquer ce professeur d’EPS récemment accusé d’avoir tiré sur la police à Amiens car son ADN avait été retrouvé sur une arme : il avait eu le malheur de revendre sa voiture à quelqu’un du quartier insurgé longtemps auparavant. Coup de chance, il put prouver qu’il était en Bretagne la nuit des tirs. On peut avancer le cas de cette chimiste assermentée de Boston, Annie Dookhan, qui par zèle a bidonné, des années durant, ses « expertises », ce qui aboutit à la remise en cause de dizaines de milliers de condamnations dans le Massachusetts. On peut faire valoir que les traces génétiques que partout nous déposons se mêlent et s’entrelacent avec toutes celles de tous ceux que nous croisons, que nous aimons. Que l’existence est toujours collective et qu’aucune analyse génétique ne permettra jamais de décrypter le monde tel qu’il est vécu.

On peut tout autant s’indigner du fait que ce qui fut initialement vendu comme le « fichier des violeurs » comporte aujourd’hui plus de 2 millions d’identifications. On peut même tomber des nues en lisant dans Le Monde du 21 février 2012 que désormais la police, grâce à un « vide juridique », détourne les garde-fous du FNAEG pour retrouver des gens grâce à l’ADN de leurs parents (ce qui fait évidemment exploser le nombre de personnes effectivement fichées à des dizaines de millions).

…

Les invités de Mediapart, 5 février 2013

Posted on 9 février 2013 by juralib

Find this story at 9 February 2013

Auch ein UN-Gesandter kritisiert die sexualisierte Informationsbeschaffung britischer verdeckter Ermittler. Der Guardian enthüllte am Wochenende, wie die Polizisten Identitäten toter Kinder stehlen

Britische verdeckte Ermittler haben in den letzten Jahrzehnten in mindestens 80 Fällen die Identitäten gestorbener Kinder und Jugendlicher angenommen. Dies berichtete der Guardian am Wochenende. Die Spitzel bzw. deren Vorgesetzte suchten sich jene Kinder aus, deren Geburtsdatum etwa ihrem eigenen entsprach. Mit der jetzt vielfach kritisierten Praxis sollte das Auffliegen der Spitzel erschwert werden, da diese neben Geburtsdokumenten auch eine Biographie vorzeigen konnten.

Zur Ausgestaltung der falschen Identitäten unternahmen die Polizisten bisweilen Ausflüge in die frühere Umgebung der Toten, um auf etwaige Fragen antworten zu können. In keinem Fall wurden die Eltern der Kinder hiervon benachrichtigt. Die Verwandten der Gestorbenen tragen aber im Falle des Auffliegens der Spitzel ein beträchtliches Risiko, wenn etwa wütende, ausgeforschte Demonstranten bei ihnen vorstellig werden. Nach der Veröffentlichung bemühte sich die Polizei um Schadensbegrenzung: Angeblich würde der Identitätsdiebstahl nicht mehr angewandt.

Spitzel zeugen Kinder und tauchen ab

Der Skandal wirft ein weiteres Schlaglicht auf die dubiosen Methoden der britischen Polizei. Heute befasst sich der Innenausschuss des Parlaments in einer Anhörung mit Spitzeln, die mit den von ihnen ausgeforschten Ziel- oder Kontaktpersonen jahrelang emotionale Bindungen eingingen und Sexualität praktizierten. Dies hatte in der britischen Öffentlichkeit für Entsetzen gesorgt.

Elf Frauen und ein Mann brachten die Fälle letztes Jahr vor Gericht und verwiesen darauf, dass die Polizisten dabei mindestens drei Kinder gezeugt hatten (Emotionaler und sexueller Missbrauch durch Polizisten wird öffentlich). Die zwischen sieben Monaten und sechs Jahre dauernden Beziehungen endeten aber mit dem plötzlichen Abtauchen der vermeintlichen Partner, wenn deren Einsatz abgebrochen wurde. Die Klagen richten sich gegen die britische Metropolitan Police und die halbprivate “Association of Chief Police Officers”, die für die klandestinen Ermittlungen zuständig war.

Die Zivilklage betont unter anderem die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention, die in Artikel 8 das “Recht auf Achtung des Privat- und Familienlebens” behandelt. Der zuständige Richter verglich das sexuelle Gebaren mit dem Geheimagenten James Bond, was in Großbritannien zu Debatten geführt hatte. Zwar unterstrich der traditionell gelockte Richter die Glaubwürdigkeit der Klagen, beschloss aber gleichzeitig, dass diese in Teilen nicht-öffentlich verhandelt werden. Derartige Geheimverfahren waren bislang nur für den Geheimdienst MI5 vorgesehen. Für die Klägerinnen bedeutet dies, dass sie nicht auf Einlassungen der Polizisten reagieren können.

Vom Geheimverfahren betroffen sind die Einsätze des bekannten Spitzels Mark Kennedy, der jetzt in den USA lebt. Mit seinem Kollegen, der unter dem Namen “Marco Jacobs” auftrat, unterwanderte Kennedy die linke Mobilisierung gegen den G8-Gipfel in Heiligendamm 2007 und den NATO-Gipfel in Strasbourg 2009 (Polizeispitzel belügen Staatsanwaltschaften und Gerichte).

Bundesregierung verweigert Aufklärung

Der geltungssüchtige Kennedy, der seine Spitzelei sogar in einer Doku-Fiction zu Geld machte, hatte sich letztes Jahr selbst zum Opfer erklärt: Öffentlichkeitswirksam nutzt er die Klagen der Frauen, um seinerseits Schadensersatz von seinen früheren Vorgesetzten zu fordern. Da diese ihn nicht an den sexuellen Affären und Beziehungen gehindert hätten, sollen sie ihm den dadurch entstandenen posttraumatischen Stress mit rund 120.000 Euro vergüten.

Im Januar schlug sich der UN-Berichterstatter für Versammlungsfreiheit und Vereinigung, Maina Kiai, auf die Seite der betroffenen Frauen. Der Kenianer richtete eine Protestnote an die britische Regierung, in der er eine öffentliche Untersuchung zu den Vorfällen fordert. Dies würde auch ein neues Licht auf den Spitzeltausch mit Deutschland werfen.

…

Matthias Monroy

Find this story at 5 February 2013

Copyright © 2013 Heise Zeitschriften Verlag

Metropolitan police’s Patricia Gallan gives evidence to MPs following Guardian revelations about undercover policing – along with victims’ lawyers and reporter Paul Lewis

The identities of an estimated 80 dead children have been used by undercover police. A police operative who used the alias Pete Black to spy on protest groups explains how they did it

Hello and welcome to live coverage of the Commons home affairs select committee’s hearing into the Guardian’s revelations about undercover policing.

Patricia Gallan, a deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the Metropolitan police’s investigation into the controversy, faces questions from MPs about the scandal, which this week widened to include the stealing by police of the identities of dead children.

Before Gallan appears, the public hearing will begin at 3.15pm with evidence from solicitors for women who feel they were duped into having relationships with undercover officers. Eleven women are currently bringing legal action against the Metropolitan police for damages. The lawyers appearing before the committee today are:

• Harriet Wistrich, solicitor, Birnberg Peirce & Partners
• Jules Carey, solicitor, Tuckers Solicitors
• Marian Ellingworth, solicitor, Tuckers Solicitors

Also speaking will be my colleague Paul Lewis, who along with fellow Guardian reporter Rob Evans two years ago broke the story that led to these hearings when they reported that police officer Mark Kennedy had lived for seven years undercover in the environmental protest movement, establishing sexual relationships with activists during the course of his work. One woman was his girlfriend for six years.

Lewis and Evans went on to report that, of nine undercover police identified by the Guardian over the past two years, eight were believed to have slept with the people they were spying on. In at least three cases, relationships between police and the women they were spying on resulted in the birth of children.

Kennedy will also give evidence today – but in private.

In a further development, this week Lewis and Evans reported that police secretly authorised undercover officers to steal the identities of around 80 dead children over three decades. (Kennedy is not thought to have done this.) In this video, a police operative who used the alias Pete Black to spy on protest groups explains how they did it.

Keith Vaz, the chair of the home affairs committee, has said he is “shocked” at the “gruesome” practice, and has said the police should inform parents whose children’s identities were used. Scotland Yard has announced an investigation into the controversy, and has said the practice is not “currently” authorised. Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, has called for a public inquiry into undercover policing following the revelations.

We’ll be covering the hearing live here, and you can watch it on the parliament website.
Updated at 3.21pm GMT
3.21pm GMT

The committee seems to be running late – or the live broadcast is not working. Apologies.
Updated at 3.30pm GMT
3.36pm GMT

The live stream has begun. Sorry for the delay.
3.38pm GMT

Keith Vaz, the committee chair, says the committee has sat in private to take evidence from witnesses.

Now the lawyers are here to speak in public.

He starts with the issue of police using dead children’s identity.

Lawyer Jules Carey says he has been instructed by one family whose son Rod Richardson’s name was used by an undercover police officer, who infiltrated various political groups.
Updated at 3.38pm GMT
3.39pm GMT

Carey says his client wants to understand why he child’s name was used. He says he is also representing a number of women who are concerned that such operations are still carrying on.

He says he has submitted a written complaint to the police, which he believes is the complaint that has triggered a police investigation.
3.40pm GMT

Vaz asks lawyer Harriet Wistrich if there is any justification for police to use undercover tactics.

She says there is no justification for them to use sex in their work.

That is the issues she is concerned with: the “overwhelming damage” that has been caused.

All the women involved have been “very, very seriously psychologically harmed” as a result of what the police did to them, Wistrich says.

The police were aware of this, she says.
3.46pm GMT

Vaz quotes from Mr Justice Tugendhat’s recent judgment about undercover police, in which the judge used James Bond as context for police using sex during undercover work.

Wistrich asks what controls we can put on undercover police.

She says MPs could not have meant sexual relationships to have been part of the Regulation of Investigatory Practices Act.

Does the law need to be changed, Vaz asks lawyer Marian Ellingworth.

Ellingworth says sex should not be sanctioned.

Carey says RIPA cannot approve sexual relationships. The structure of the act does not envisage sexual relationships, he says. The words “personal and other relationships” cannot have been meant to include sex – they are too vague for that.

You cannot legislate to breach a fundamental right such as “bodily integrity”, Carey says.
3.49pm GMT

Tory Lorraine Fullbrook asks what the absolute legal limit should be on undercover police officers’ behaviours.

Wistrich says you have to completely stop before a sexual relationship.

Fullbrook tries to pin her down on the “absolute legal limit”, but Wistrich says that depends on the circumstances.

Vaz says Fullbrook is looking for a list of what is and isn’t acceptable.

Wistrich says again there are circumstances when different things are acceptable – for example to stop a child trafficking ring.

Carey says undercover officers shouldn’t be deployed unless it’s necessary and proportionate – political groups wouldn’t be covered, he says.
3.51pm GMT

Tory Michael Ellis repeats Tugendhat’s point that undercover policing wouldn’t surprise the public.

These kind of sexual relationships “probably happen more often to men” than to women, he claims, citing the example of Mata Hari.

He accuses the lawyers of wanting to tie the police’s hands unreasonably.
3.54pm GMT

Wistrich says using sex in this way is massively beyond the bounds of a civilised society.

Labour’s Bridget Phillipson asks if police were directed to form these relationships or did so of their own volition.

Ellingworth says the police won’t even confirm that the men in question were undercover officers, let alone say whether they were following orders.

Wistrich says the police have not yet tried to come up with a circumstance that they say are justified.

Phillipson asks if female officers have had relationships with men.

Carey says they are aware of one female officer who has been deployed in this way. None of the lawyers are instructed by males.

Wistrich says there are always exceptions, but this is really a form of “institutionalised sexism”.

The impact is massively upon women, she says.
3.57pm GMT

Labour’s David Winnick asks if it’s naive to believe the police were not aware sexual relationships were taking place involving undercover officers.

Wistrich says she believes they were, officially or unofficially.

Carey says there is a striking similarity in terms of how many of these relationships started and ended. Many of their clients felt these relationships were entered into by design by the officers. That suggests senior officers were aware of it.

Carey says the public would expect police officers to behave like James Bond if we lived in a world full of Dr Nos. But we don’t, he says.

There is no necessity for these actions, Carey says.
3.59pm GMT

Winnick raises the adopting of the names of dead children. Was this authorised?

Wistrich says she felt this would have been authorised.

Winnick asks if the lawyers consider that a particularly despicable act.

Carey says every aspect of this policing operation is “utterly depraved”. It’s very hard to quantify particular aspects.

“It’s utterly despicable,” says Wistrich.

Ellingworth agrees.
4.02pm GMT

Labour’s Chris Ruane asks how the police can be held to account here.

Wistrich says that’s what the lawyers are aiming to do.

They have met with “a complete barrage of obstacles” from the police. The police have asked for information from them but given none in return.

Wistrich says she has written to the IPCC, which is supervising an investigation into some of these issues, but got no response.

Ruane asks what the key questions that need to be answered. Wistrich suggests:

Why were the police involved in these people’s lives? What information did they gather? How can this be stopped from happening in the future?
4.05pm GMT

Carey says the principal question he would ask is whether they have read the nine principles of policing from 1828.

He reads one out: the police’s actions depend on public approval of those actions.

They’ve lost public respect through these actions, Carey says.

Tory Mark Reckless asks whether the deception by the officers means the sex they had with activists was non-consensual.

Wistrich says that’s a very good point. She’s written to the CPS but got no reply.

Vaz asks for copies of all these letters.

Carey says he is representing a client who had a child from one of these relationships.
Updated at 5.31pm GMT
4.11pm GMT

The Guardian’s Paul Lewis takes his seat.

Vaz asks how Lewis and Rob Evans discovered all this information.

Lewis says they spoke to police officers while working on a book related to this. He says the police officers were not just using the names of dead children, they were adopting many aspects of that person’s identity.

Where does the figure of 80 officers using this tactic come from, Vaz asks.

It’s an estimate, says Lewis. He’d like to hear from the Met police about this. It’s possible it could be fewer or more than 80 officers.

Carey’s complaint comes from 2003, he says.

Vaz says it’s a “pretty gruesome practice” and that it must be “heartless and cruel” for the parents not to have been informed.

Lewis ask if this was limited to the Special Demonstration Squad or was used more widely.
4.13pm GMT

Lewis says he has spoken to people whose children’s identities have been used in this way.

He says the Met police have placed the families of these children at some risk. Other activists could try to track down the undercover officers and seek out the family of the child whose identity was stolen. Far right groups were infiltrated in this way, Lewis says.

Vaz asks if the Met police have asked Lewis for this information.

Lewis says he has an obligation to protect his sources. He’s confident that the police know all the children’s identities.
4.15pm GMT

Vaz asks him to accept that in some circumstances the police are justified in using undercover agents.

Lewis says some undercover operations are justified, but raises the issue of proportionality. He mentions far right groups and violent animal rights groups. But in the main we are talking about non-violent activists, he says.
4.18pm GMT

Tory Michael Ellis asks if the public have a human right to be protected from crime and suggests senior officers are best-placed to decide when it’s right to use undercover officers.

He says he agrees with that.

But he begs to differ that the public would be unsurprised by officers using sex in this way.

Ellis says it was Tugendhat who said the public would be unsurprised, and he has great experience.

Lewis says Tugendhat was not referring to the public’s view, but to MPs’ view when they passed the relevant law.
4.21pm GMT

Ellis asks if Lewis has heard any account of absence of consent in these sexual relationships – discounting the overall deception.

Lewis says men and women have had sex with undercover police officers. They may argue that they did not have the necessary information to give informed consent – although Lewis says he doesn’t agree with that.

He says police say this behaviour was only happening among “bad apples”.

But he and Evans have identified nine undercover officers, and eight were having sexual relationships with activists. One officer was a woman, he says.

One undercover policeman told Lewis that of a team of 10 nine were having sexual relationships with activists.

Fullbrook asks if senior officers knew about this. Lewis says it’s likely. One undercover officer says he was told by a senior officer to use contraception. That implies the senior officer knew.
4.24pm GMT

Labour’s Bridget Phillipson says the length of the relationships involved shocked her.

Lewis says having met the victims he has found it difficult to convey their pain. He suggests the committee’s MPs think about how they would feel if their own partner turned out to be an agent of the state.

At least four children have been born as a result of these relationships, Lewis says.

Lewis says he does not believe MPs intended this in the RIPA, and would have used the words “sexual relationships” rather than “personal relationships”, and he certainly does not think they would have imagined children resulting from these relationships.
4.25pm GMT

Winnick asks if undercover agents could have done this job without embarking on sexual relationships with activists.

Lewis says some officers did not do this, so the answer is yes.
4.28pm GMT

Was it a rogue operation?

Lewis says some senior officers were unaware of the existence of the Special Demonstration Squad.

How can the police clean up this matter and restore confidence?

Openness and transparency, says Lewis. Over the last two years, the Met police have offered “very little help”.

We are heavily reliant on sources who have the courage to come forward, Lewis says.

At some stage the Met police will have to think about the best strategy to regain trust, he says.

The truth tends to come out eventually, he says.
4.30pm GMT

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Patricia Gallan of the Met police takes her place next.
4.33pm GMT

Vaz says there will be an open session and then a private session.

He says he was pretty shocked to learn about the use of dead children’s identities. Was she equally shocked?

Gallan tries to outline her role instead.

Vaz insists she answers the question.

Gallan says we are investigating something that has been going on since 1968 and it is important to understand the context.

She says she is overseeing the operation examining past practices relating to this.

She says she does not know if the figure of 80 children’s identities being used is accurate. She knows of two cases. More evidence will probably come to light, but she does not want to prejudge the investigation.

But she is very concerned at what she has heard, she says.

That is why the Met have asked the IPCC to supervise.
4.35pm GMT

Gallan says it is looking at the activities of the SDS over 40 years.

There are more than 50,000 documents to sift through and retired officers to speak to. They want to hear from anyone who has any evidence, she says.

But was she shocked, asks Vaz.

Gallan says she was “very concerned” because “it is not practice as I know it”.

That doesn’t sound very condemnatory, Vaz says.

It isn’t still happening, Gallan says. It has been confined to the SDS and the NPOIU (National Public Order Intelligence Unit).
4.38pm GMT

Vaz asks who is dealing with the operational matters regarding undercover policing. The commander of cover policing, Richard Martin, she says.

Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley is above him, she says.

She can’t give a date when the practice of using dead children’s identities stopped, she says. But it is not sanctioned today among the Met or any other police force in the country, she says.

Should the children’s parents be informed, Vaz asks.

Gallan says it’s important to find out all the circumstances and whether they are accurate.

She says ethical and legal issues also need to be considered.

Would it affect any operatives whose positions would be exposed, she says.

Vaz says some members of the committee have heard this kind of thing regarding phone-hacking.
4.39pm GMT

Vaz stresses that where the police have names and addresses now, they should inform parents now.

Gallan says she can’t give a blanket yes or no.
4.42pm GMT

It has never been practice within most areas of undercover policing to take identities in this way, she says. Only the SDS and National Public Order Intelligence Unit did this.

Thirty-one staff are working on Operation Hearn, looking into the issue of undercover police regarding the SDS, including 20 police officers.

The estimated cost to date is £1.25m.

Vaz says that sounds like a lot of money and a lot of officers, implying that they can probably get through all those 50,000 documents more quickly than they are.

Vaz asks if when she has completed her operation she will inform the parents.

Gallan says she needs to consider all the issues and can’t give a yes or no answer.
4.44pm GMT

Vaz asks if she would like to apologise for this scandal.

Gallan says at the appropriate time statements would be made.

Until she knows all the facts she can’t do anything like that, she says.
4.46pm GMT

The admission that a second unit, the NPOIU, has used dead children’s identities is very important, since that unit was only formed in 1999.
4.48pm GMT

Vaz asks if the Guardian revelations broke the news to her of the use of children’s identities. She knew of one example in September last year.

Since then has she informed the parents, Vaz asks. She says she hasn’t and she’ll explain why in closed session.

Gallan is asked again about apologising. She says there are live proceedings ongoing and the Met police will decide at the end.
4.49pm GMT

Michael Ellis asks what rank of officer was in charge of the SDS or the NPOIU.

Superintendent, Gallan says.

Were they rogue units?

Gallan says from what she has seen the practices in place weren’t following national guidelines. We need to get all the evidence, she says, so she doesn’t want to go further than that.
4.51pm GMT

Ellis asks if taking children’s identities was not accepted practice even at the time.

Gallan says it was not standard procedure.

Ellis says these were unauthorised practices even at the time. He suggests these were rogue units or units operating outside their protocols.

That’s one of the things we’re investigating, Gallan says.

A senior officer cannot authorise something that is outside of procedures at the time, Ellis says.
4.53pm GMT

Winnick asks if Gallan thinks it was in the public interest for the Guardian to give the names of some of the dead children?

She says she believes in the free press.

Has the reputation of the press been harmed?

Gallan says when used appropriately undercover work is very important, and they are worried about anything that undermines confidence in that.

Asked the same question again, she says: “I think it is.”

I’ll take that to be a yes, says Winnick.
4.55pm GMT

How far is it possible for undercover work to take place without sexual relationships, Winnick asks.

Gallan says she doesn’t believe you can authorise such activities, morally.

If something like that does happen it should be reported immediately.

Winnick asks if it’s right to assume the officers were not not told to engage in sex.

Gallan says she might be able to explain that in closed session, but it was not authorised.
4.59pm GMT

Metropolitan police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has said it is “almost inevitable” some undercover officers will have sexual relationships in this way although he wouldn’t encourage it, Vaz says. Doesn’t that contradict Gallan’s view?

Nick Herbert, the policing minister, has said that to ban such actions would provide a ready-made test for the targeted group, Vaz says.

What is her view?

Gallan repeats that there is a moral issue. Legally, the law is silent on that, and she will explain that in closed session, she says.

The Met police does not authorise that conduct, she repeats.

She says she cannot envisage under any circumstances a commander authorising this kind of behaviour.
5.02pm GMT

But was it prohibited, asks Vaz.

In the closed session, she will explain more, says Gallan.

Tory James Clappison suggests that some of these relationships went on for so long that senior officers must have known what was happening.

Vaz says he is disappointed that Gallan has not sent out a message that the Met police is sorry that the practice of using dead children’s identities has taken place.

Winnick adds that the committee is disappointed.

Vaz says he is concerned that she has known about one incident since September and still has not got to the bottom of it.

One of the victims followed the trail and turned up at the house of the dead child’s parents. They weren’t there, but imagine their grief if they had have been, Vaz says.

Gallan repeats her “concern” and says she is keeping an open mind about the facts.

It would be inappropriate to rush to make statements in haste, Gallan says.
5.03pm GMT

Does she have a timetable for the conclusion of Operation Hearn, Vaz asks.

Gallan says it would be wrong to put a timescale on it.

We are determined to go where the evidence takes us, she says.
5.03pm GMT

With that the committee goes into closed session.
5.36pm GMT
Summary

Here is a summary of what we have learned from that committee session.

• The use of dead children’s identities by undercover police officers was not confined to the Special Demonstration Squad, but was also a practice employed by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, a unit that was only set up in 1999, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Patricia Gallan of the Metropolitan police revealed to the Commons home affairs committee.

• Gallan knew about one case of a child’s identity being used in this way in September last year. The practice is not sanctioned today among the Met or any other force in the country, she said.

• Including the case that came to light in September, she knew of only two cases of this happening, she said, and did not know if the Guardian’s estimate of 80 cases was accurate. But she felt that more cases would probably come to light.

• Keith Vaz, the chair of the committee, said he was “disappointed” that Gallan would not apologise for the police’s actions, saying only that she was “very concerned” at the allegations and wanted to wait until all the facts had been established before rushing to make a statement.

• Vaz was also extremely concerned that Gallan had not informed the parents in the case discovered in September last year, and wanted her to promise she would inform all the parents involved as soon as possible. Gallan would not agree to this.

• Police officers having sex with activists in groups they infiltrated was not authorised, and could not justified morally, Gallan said. She could not envisage any circumstances under which a commander would authorise this.

• She admitted the Metropolitan police’s reputation had been harmed by the scandal.

• Thirty-one staff are working on Operation Hearn, looking into the issue of undercover police, including 20 police officers. The estimated cost to date is £1.25m.

• Lawyers for women who feel they were duped into having relationships with undercover officers attacked the practice as being “depraved”, “dispicable” and beyond the bounds of a civilised society. MPs on the committee broadly seemed to agree, although Tory Michael Ellis drew attention to Mr Justice Tugendhat’s contention that such relationships would not surprise the public, accused the lawyers of wanting to tie the police’s hands unreasonable. He asked if the public had a human right to be protected from crime and suggested senior officers were best-placed to decide when it was and was not right to use undercover officers.

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House of Commons · Keith Vaz ·

Police must inform parents of children whose IDs were used by spies, says MP

4 Feb 2013

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30 Jan 2013

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30 Jan 2013

Home secretary Theresa May will today announce plans to allow police forces to recruit senior officers from outside the service, meaning business leaders, for example, could quickly move into top jobs rather than having to start as constables pounding the beat. Many police are opposed. Do you support the move?

Paul Owen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 February 2013 14.17 GMT

Find this story at 5 February 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

In England hatte ein Undercover-Polizist regelmäßig Sex mit Frauen aus der überwachten Szene. In Deutschland wäre das unzulässig, beteuert das Innenministerium.von Christian Rath

Die Berichterstattung des „Guardian“ über Mark Kennedy brachte den Stein ins Rollen. Bild: screenshot guardian.co.uk

BERLIN taz | Verdeckte Ermittler von Bundeskriminalamt und Bundespolizei dürfen keine sexuellen Beziehungen eingehen, um Informationen zu erlangen. Das erklärte jetzt das Bundesinnenministerium auf eine parlamentarische Anfrage des Linken-Abgeordneten Andrej Hunko.

Anlass der Nachfrage ist der Fall des englischen Polizisten Mark Kennedy, der mit falschem Namen, langen Haaren und Ohrringen einige Jahre lang militante Umweltschützer und Globalisierungskritiker in ganz Europa ausspionierte. Auch in Deutschland war Kennedy aktiv: während des G-8-Gipfels in Heiligendamm 2007 sowie beim Nato-Gipfel in Baden Baden 2009.

Im Rahmen seiner Spitzeltätigkeit unterhielt der Polizist Kennedy auch zahlreiche Liebschaften. Wie die englische Zeitung Guardian aufdeckte, war es durchaus üblich, dass verdeckte Ermittler sexuelle Beziehungen in der von ihr überwachten Szene knüpften. Jetzt klagen zehn Frauen und ein Mann vor dem englischen High Court auf Schadensersatz. Sie hätten ein emotionales Trauma erlitten, nachdem Menschen, mit denen sie „tiefe persönliche“ Beziehungen eingingen, sich als Spitzel entpuppten.
Die Lustfrage

Der Bundestagsabgeordnete Andrej Hunko wollte deshalb von der Bundesregierung wissen, ob sie es für zulässig hält, wenn Verdeckte Ermittler „Sexualität oder sonstige emotional tiefgehende Beziehungen mit ihren Zielpersonen oder deren Kontaktpersonen praktizieren“. Antwort: Die Bundesregierung ist der Auffassung, „dass das Eingehen derartiger Beziehungen aus ermittlungstaktischen Gründen in aller Regel unzulässig ist“. Und Innenstaatssekretär Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, von dem die Antwort stammt, fügt hinzu: „Dies gilt auch für den Einsatz von Mitarbeitern ausländischer Behörden in Deutschland mit deutscher Zustimmung.“

Die Auskunft klingt eindeutig, enthält aber eine wichtige Einschränkung: Unzulässig ist der Ermittler-Sex nur, wenn er „aus ermittlungstaktischen Gründen“ stattfindet – sprich: Wenn der Polizist eigentlich keine Lust hat. Wenn der Verdeckte Ermittler aber aus Lust und/oder Liebe gerne mit einer Ziel- oder Kontaktperson schlafen will, scheint dies nach Ansicht von Staatssekretär Fritsche rechtlich nicht ausgeschlossen.

Dagegen hatte der auf Geheimdienstrecht spezialisierte Anwalt Udo Kauß 2011 im taz-interview gefordert: „Genauso wie ein Verdeckter Ermittler keine Straftaten begehen darf, darf er mit den Zielpersonen und deren Umfeld auch keine Liebesbeziehungen führen.“ Wenn ein Einsatz „aus dem Ruder“ laufe, müsse er abgebrochen werden.
Der deutsche Fall Bromma

In Baden-Württemberg hatte die Polizei 2010 den jungen Beamten Simon Bromma in linke studentische Gruppen eingeschleust. Er sollte herausfinden, ob im Umfeld der Antifaschistischen Initiative Heidelberg (AIHD) Gewaltakte gegen Polizisten und Nazis geplant waren. Er erschlich sich mit seiner freundlichen und hilfsbereiten Art in den Kreisen um die studentische „Kritische Initiative“ zahlreiche Freundschaften, flog dann aber auf, als ihn eine Ferienbekanntschaft erkannte.

Sieben Betroffene aus der bespitzelten Szene erhoben im August 2011 Klage beim Verwaltungsgericht Karlsruhe. Sie verlangen die Feststellung, dass der Undercover-Einsatz gegen die linke Heidelberger Szene generell rechtswidrig war. Sie seien keine „gewaltbereiten Gefährder“. Außerdem seien die Privatsphäre und die Menschenwürde verletzt, wenn den Aktivisten „ohne eigenes Wissen eine Freundschaft/Bekanntschaft zu einem polizeilichen Ermittler aufgezwungen“ werde.

Das Verfahren kommt allerdings nicht voran, weil der baden-württembergische Innenminister Reinhold Gall (SPD) alle Spitzelberichte Brommas gesperrt hat. Die Arbeitsweise Verdeckter Ermittler müsse geheim bleiben, da die Undercover-Agenten sonst leicht enttarnt werden könnten, argumentierte Gall. Dagegen klagten die Betroffenen in einem Zwischenverfahren und erzielten nun einen Teilerfolg.
Teilweise rechtswidrig

…

04.02.20133 Kommentare

Find this story at 4 February 2013

© der taz

Anthony Barker says police could have put family in danger by using identity of brother John, who died aged eight

John Dines, a police sergeant who adopted the identity of John Barker to pose as an environmental campaigner, pictured in the early 1990s

Undercover police were “reckless” when they stole the identity of an eight-year-old boy who had died of leukaemia, according to his brother, who is demanding an apology for putting his family at risk.

Anthony Barker, whose brother John Barker died in 1968, said he was shocked to discover the boy’s identity was resurrected and adopted by undercover police spying on political groups.

The Metropolitan police has admitted that two of its undercover units appear to have used the identities of dead children, a practice which has lasted four decades and was still going on in the 2000s.

The identity of John Barker was adopted by a police sergeant called John Dines, who posed as an environmental campaigner between 1987 and 1992.

“The danger the police put my family in – and all the other families this has happened to – is horrendous,” Barker said. An investigation by the Guardian has established police used the identities of dead children so their undercover agents could pose as real people. Barker said that in doing so, they placed innocent families at risk.

“In our case, we now discover, there was a girlfriend who was left behind when the policeman pretending to be my brother disappeared from the scene,” he said. “Apparently she was so worried about him that she tracked him down to the house we had moved out of a few years earlier.

“Now, imagine that policeman had infiltrated a violent gang or made friends with a volatile person, then disappeared, just like this man did.

“Someone wanting revenge would have tracked us down to our front door – but they wouldn’t have wanted a cup of tea and a chat, like this woman says she did.”

Although many police spies using dead children’s identities were infiltrating peaceful leftwing and environmental groups, many were also deployed in violent far-right groups.

“If we had told those sorts of people that the man they thought they had known for so many years has died as a little boy, they would have thought we were lying,” Barker said. “Who knows what would have happened to us then?”

He added: “These people could have found our family in a heartbeat. That was an absolutely reckless thing for the police to do.”

Anthony Barker, who was born the year after his brother died, said: “My parents always said he was a lovely lad. They could not afford more than one child. They only had me because John passed away.

“It totally shattered my parents when he died. You can see from photographs how much his death aged them. When I was a toddler they looked like my grandparents.”

Barker described the use of dead children’s identities as a “clinical, mechanic way of policing” and morally “horrific”. He believed his parents, who are now deceased, would have been appalled to discover a police officer was posing as their beloved son.

“In my view, these were politically motivated undercover operations. That is what I cannot understand. What kinds of crimes did these political activists commit? We’re not talking about drug dealers or terrorists. These operations must have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and all the while my parents were living in poverty.”

He added: “Not only is it horrendous to steal the identity of a child but by taking that identity into an unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation, they’re putting entire families at risk.”

The Met has declined to say how many dead children’s identities it believes have been used by covert agents, although the force has stressed that the practice is not currently in use.

A document seen by the Guardian indicates that the Special Demonstration Squad, one of two police units known to have used the practice, used the identities of around 80 dead children.

On Tuesday the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Patricia Gallan told a parliamentary inquiry that a second unit involved in spying on protesters appears to have used dead children’s identities.

The second unit, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit, was founded in 1999 and operated throughout the 2000s.

It suggests the total number of dead children’s identities used by police could exceed 100.

MPs expressed their disapproval when Gallan, who is overseeing a £1.25m review of protest spying operations, refused to apologise for any hurt caused until her inquiries were complete.

She also refused to say whether she would contact the families involved, saying there were “legal and ethical issues” to consider.

Barker said: “I strongly believe all the families who this has happened to need to be told. They have been placed at risk. That is the bottom line. These were undercover operations. Anything could have happened.”

…

Amelia Hill, Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 6 February 2013 16.55 GMT

Find this story at 6 February 2013
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

When the man known to his activist girlfriend as John Barker disappeared, she embarked on a journey that led her to the former home of a child whose name he used as an alias

John Dines taking part in a race in the early 1990s when he was serving as an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police’s special branch

John Barker was an eight-year-old boy who died of leukaemia in 1968. Nineteen years later his identity was quietly resurrected by the police. The man who adopted the boy’s identity, claiming it as his own, was John Dines, an undercover sergeant in the Metropolitan police’s special branch.

In 1987 Dines was tasked with posing as an anti-capitalist protester, feeding intelligence to his handlers in a secret unit called the special demonstration squad (SDS). It was a controversial and morally dubious deployment that lasted five years and will now return to haunt him.

Like many SDS officers, Dines had a long-term girlfriend who was a political activist. She does not want to be identified and has asked to be referred to as Clare.

Her story lays bare the emotional trauma experienced by women whom police have described as “collateral” victims of their spy operations, as well as the risks police were taking by adopting the identities of dead children.

In 1990 the man Clare knew as John Barker asked to borrow money so he could fly to New Zealand for his mother’s funeral. “The night before he got the flight to go there, he stayed at my place and kind of poured his heart out. We became emotionally close. When he got back, we got together.”

There was no funeral in New Zealand and Dines had no need to borrow money. But Clare had known Dines as a fellow protester for three years and had no reason to suspect him. The couple would end up in an intimate relationship for two years.

“He said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and I was madly in love with him,” she said. “He said he wanted us to have kids. He used to say he had once seen an elderly Greek couple sitting on a veranda gazing into the sunset, and that he pictured us growing old like that.”

By the summer of 1991, as part of an exit strategy, Dines began exhibiting symptoms of a mental breakdown.

“He kept talking about how he had nobody left apart from me,” Clare said. “His parents had both died. He had no brothers and sisters. The only woman that he had ever loved before me, a woman called Debbie, had left him. He said he was convinced I was going to do the same to him.”

Dines gave the impression he wanted to run away to escape inner demons. “I saw him crying loads,” Clare said. “He told me that he had thrown all of his mother’s jewellery into a river because he thought she never loved him. He told me his parents had abused him.”

In March 1992 an emotional-sounding Dines called from Heathrow airport saying he was about to fly to South Africa. After that, Clare received two letters with South African postmarks. Then her boyfriend vanished altogether.

Clare was left distraught and confused. “I was very worried about his mental state,” she said. “I was also sick with worry that he might kill himself.”

Clare contacted the British consulate in South Africa and frantically phoned hostels she thought he may have stayed in Johannesburg. She later hired a private investigator who could find no trace of Dines.

It was the start of a journey for the truth that would last almost two decades and eventually take her to New Zealand. It was not until 2010 that she found out for sure that the man she had loved was a police spy.

For some of the time that Clare thought her boyfriend was missing abroad, he was actually working just a few miles away. When his undercover work finished, Dines changed his mullet-style haircut and returned to a desk job at the Met headquarters in Scotland Yard where, according to a colleague, he appeared “very miserable”.

In her search for clues, one of the first things Clare did was locate a copy of what she assumed was her boyfriend’s birth certificate. The document confirmed the details he had always given her: it named a city in the Midlands where he was born in January 1960. She had no idea that the identity was a forgery, or that the real John Barker had died as a boy.

In April 1993, desperate after a year of searching, Clare decided to visit Barker’s family home in the hope of finding any surviving relatives, but when she knocked on the door of the terrace house there was no answer. She went back later but the occupants said the family no longer lived there.

Looking back, she wonders what would have occurred if the dead child’s parents had opened the door. “It would have been horrendous,” she said. “It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier.”

It was another 18 months before Clare decided to inspect the national death records. “I just suddenly got this instinct. It was a whim: I thought, I’m going to go in there and look through the death records.”

She recalls her horror when she discovered the real John Barker was dead. “It sent a chill down my spine,” she said. “When I got the certificate itself, it was so clear. The same person. The same parents. The same address. But he had died as an eight-year-old boy.”

The Guardian has been unable to find surviving relatives of the child.

The discovery turned Clare’s world upside down. “It was like a bereavement but it was not something I could talk to people about. Now suddenly he didn’t exist. This was a man I had known for five years, who I had lived with for two years. How could I trust anybody again?”

Clare now knew her boyfriend had lied about his identity, but still had no idea who he was. The idea that he might have been a police spy crossed her mind, but he might also have worked in corporate espionage or had a hidden criminal past. It was another 10 years of searching before she got closer to the truth.

Clare had two clues to go on. One was the name of a woman in New Zealand who Dines had told her was an aunt. The other was a letter in which he had made a curious reference to his biological father being a man he had never met, called Jim Dines.

The woman in New Zealand was not his aunt but, bizarrely, the mother of Dines’s real wife. Stranger still, Jim Dines was, in fact, the police officer’s real father and had brought him up in London.

Clare has no idea why the undercover police officer chose to compromise his deployment by giving Clare cryptic references to people in his real life. Perhaps he was psychologically traumatised by his dual identities and wanted to leave a trail that would allow Clare to find him.

Whatever his reason, the clues led Clare to a public archive in New Zealand. It was there, in 2003, that she made a crucial connection: a document that linked Dines with the woman he married, Debbie.

Clare instantly realised they must have been a married couple. Back in London, she ordered the couple’s wedding certificate. “What hit me like a ton of bricks is that he listed his occupation as a police officer,” she said. “When I read that, I felt utterly sick and really violated. It ripped me apart basically, just reading that.”

Clare was now agonisingly close to the truth. She knew that Dines was a police officer when he married his wife in 1977. But there was still a possibility that he gave up his job before becoming a political activist.

She shared the evidence with friends and family. Some cautioned her against concluding Dines had been a police spy. “I remember my dad and others said: ‘You’re being paranoid – that would never happen in this country.'”

…

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.21 GMT

Find this story at 3 February 2013
© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan summoned before MPs to respond to revelations officers used IDs of children

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1980s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism. Dines’s alternative identity used that of a child who had died. Photograph: Guardian

A senior police chief has been summoned to parliament to explain why police secretly authorised undercover officers to steal the identities of around 80 dead children.

Pat Gallan, the Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner in charge of the complaints department, will respond to the revelations at a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday.

An investigation by the Guardian has revealed that police infiltrating protest groups have for three decades adopted the identities of dead children, without informing or consulting their parents.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children.

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee has said he is “shocked” at the “gruesome” practice.

“The committee will hear from those who have been involved in undercover operations as well as their victims,” he said. “I have asked the deputy assistant commissioner Pat Gallan to deal with the issues that have arisen.”

Gallan is head of the Met’s department for professional standards.

The Guardian has established how police officers were equipped with fabricated identity records, such as driving licences and national insurance numbers, in the name of their chosen dead child. They also visited the family home of the dead child to familiarise themselves with the surroundings and conducted research into other family members.

Scotland Yard has already announced an investigation into the controversy. It said it had received one complaint – believed to be a reference to a suspected police officer who was undercover in 2003 – and said it could “appreciate the concerns that have been raised”. The force said that the practice of using the identities of dead children is not currently authorised.

The operation is known to have been orchestrated by the Special Demonstration Squad, a secretive Met unit disbanded in 2008. Dozens of SDS officers are believed to have searched through birth and death certificates to find a child who had died young and would be a suitable match for their alias.

The officers then adopted the entire identity of the child as if the child had never died. One police officer has said the process was like “resurrecting” a dead person’s identity.

The disclosure comes after two years of revelations concerning undercover police officers having sexual relationships with women they are spying on. Eleven women are currently bringing legal action against the Met for damages.

Vaz said: “The activities of undercover police officers caused disbelief when they were revealed in 2011. These revelations [about the use of dead children’s identities] are shocking. I congratulate the Guardian on their investigation. To have used the identities of dead children without the knowledge or consent of their parents astonishes me. It sounds gruesome. ”

…

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 February 2013 12.36 GMT

Find this story at 4 February 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

The Metropolitan Police covertly stole the identities of about 80 dead children for use in operations by undercover police officers, according to a new investigation.

The practice, condemned as “gruesome” by Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, carried on for three decades as a means for police to infiltrate anti-racist, anti-capitalist and far-right protest groups. Officers obtained passports, driving licences and national insurance numbers under their new identities.

…

Tim Hume
Monday, 4 February 2013

Find this story at 4 February 2013

© independent.co.uk

Exclusive: Undercover officers created aliases based on details found in birth and death records, Guardian investigation reveals

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared in the early 1990s when he posed as John Barker, a protester against capitalism

Britain’s largest police force stole the identities of an estimated 80 dead children and issued fake passports in their names for use by undercover police officers.

The Metropolitan police secretly authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children’s parents.

The details are revealed in an investigation by the Guardian, which has established how over three decades generations of police officers trawled through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches.

Undercover officers created aliases based on the details of the dead children and were issued with accompanying identity records such as driving licences and national insurance numbers. Some of the police officers spent up to 10 years pretending to be people who had died.

The Met said the practice was not “currently” authorised, but announced an investigation into “past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS [Special Demonstration Squad] officers”.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of parliament’s home affairs select committee, said he was shocked at the “gruesome” practice. “It will only cause enormous distress to families who will discover what has happened concerning the identities of their dead children,” he said. “This is absolutely shocking.”

The technique of using dead children as aliases has remained classified intelligence for several decades, although it was fictionalised in Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal. As a result, police have internally nicknamed the process of searching for suitable identities as the “jackal run”. One former undercover agent compared an operation on which he was deployed to the methods used by the Stasi.

Two undercover officers have provided a detailed account of how they and others used the identities of dead children. One, who adopted the fake persona of Pete Black while undercover in anti-racist groups, said he felt he was “stomping on the grave” of the four-year-old boy whose identity he used.

“A part of me was thinking about how I would feel if someone was taking the names and details of my dead son for something like this,” he said. The Guardian has chosen not to identify Black by his real name.

The other officer, who adopted the identity of a child who died in a car crash, said he was conscious the parents would “still be grief-stricken”. He spoke on the condition of anonymity and argued his actions could be justified because they were for the “greater good”.

Both officers worked for a secretive unit called the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), which was disbanded in 2008.

A third undercover police officer in the SDS who adopted the identity of a dead child can be named as John Dines, a sergeant. He adopted the identity of an eight-year-old boy named John Barker, who died in 1968 from leukaemia. The Met said in a statement: “We are not prepared to confirm nor deny the deployment of individuals on specific operations.”

The force added: “A formal complaint has been received which is being investigated by the DPS [Directorate for Professional Standards] and we appreciate the concerns that have been raised. The DPS inquiry is taking place in conjunction with Operation Herne’s investigation into the wider issue of past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS officers. We can confirm that the practice referred to in the complaint is not something that would currently be authorised in the [Met police].”

There is a suggestion that the practice of using dead infant identities may have been stopped in the mid-1990s, when death records were digitised. However, the case being investigated by the Met relates to a suspected undercover police officer who may have used a dead child’s identity in 2003.

The practice was introduced 40 years ago by police to lend credibility to the backstory of covert operatives spying on protesters, and to guard against the possibility that campaigners would discover their true identities.

Since then dozens of SDS officers, including those who posed as anti-capitalists, animal rights activists and violent far-right campaigners, have used the identities of dead children.

One document seen by the Guardian indicates that around 80 police officers used such identities between 1968 and 1994. The total number could be higher.

Black said he always felt guilty when celebrating the birthday of the four-year-old whose identity he took. He was particularly aware that somewhere the parents of the boy would be “thinking about their son and missing him”. “I used to get this really odd feeling,” he said.

To fully immerse himself in the adopted identity and appear convincing when speaking about his upbringing, Black visited the child’s home town to familiarise himself with the surroundings.

Black, who was undercover in the 1990s, said his operation was “almost Stasi-like”. He said SDS officers visited the house they were supposed to have been born in so they would have a memory of the building.

“It’s those little details that really matter – the weird smell coming out of the drain that’s been broken for years, the location of the corner Post Office, the number of the bus you get to go from one place to another,” he said.

The second SDS officer said he believed the use of the harvested identities was for the “greater good”. But he was also aware that the parents had not been consulted. “There were dilemmas that went through my head,” he said.

The case of the third officer, John Dines, reveals the risks posed to families who were unaware that their children’s identities were being used by undercover police.

During his covert deployment, Dines had a two-year relationship with a female activist before disappearing from her life. In an attempt to track down her disappeared boyfriend, the woman discovered the birth certificate of John Barker and tried to track down his family, unaware that she was actually searching for a dead child.

She said she was relieved that she never managed to find the parents of the dead boy. “It would have been horrendous,” she said. “It would have completely freaked them out to have someone asking after a child who died 24 years earlier.”

The disclosure about the use of the identities of dead children is likely to reignite the controversy over undercover police infiltration of protest groups. Fifteen separate inquiries have already been launched since 2011, when Mark Kennedy was unmasked as a police spy who had slept with several women, including one who was his girlfriend for six years.

…

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian, Sunday 3 February 2013 19.13 GMT

Find this story at 3 February 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Action against al-Qa’ida in North Africa could last decades, PM warns

The West faces a decades-long battle to defeat al-Qa’ida in North Africa, David Cameron warned today, as he signalled a dramatic shift in the UK’s fight against terrorism.

The heads of MI5, MI6, GCHQ and the Chief of the Defence Staff will gather on Tuesday to begin planning Britain’s response to the burgeoning terror threat from Saharan Africa.

Britain will offer money, military co-operation and security training to African states to head off the advance of Islamist radicalism.

Special forces are understood to be preparing to hunt down the jihadist leader behind the siege and hostage killings in Algeria, Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

Britain will use its chairmanship of the G8 to focus militarily and diplomatically on the Sahara region, following the hostage crisis which claimed the lives of up to six Britons. One Middle East expert likened the long-term impact of the atrocity in Algeria to the 9/11 attacks.

Following the end of the four-day stand-off at the BP gas plant at In Amenas, Algerian forces discovered 25 more bodies and took five militants alive. The death toll had previously been put at 23 hostages and 32 captors.

Three Britons have been confirmed among the dead and another three are feared to have been killed during the siege, which ended with a shoot-out on Saturday. Tonight 46-year-old Paul Thomas Morgan was the first British victim to be named by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Kenneth Whiteside, an engineer from Glenrothes in Fife, and Garry Barlow, a BP systems supervisor from Merseyside, are also understood to be among the dead. Another UK resident was also believed to have been killed.

Twenty-two other British nationals have arrived home, many with chilling stories of how they evaded capture by jihadists belonging to an al-Qa’ida splinter group styling themselves Those Who Sign In Blood.

Alan Wright, from Aberdeenshire, told of how he hid in an office for 24 hours before joining Algerian workers who cut their way through a perimeter fence and fled.

Mr Cameron will update MPs on the attack today and hold a meeting of Whitehall’s emergency Cobra committee to consider the implications of the attack.

French forces – with support from Britain – are attempting to oust insurgents from northern Mali, amid fears that neighbouring countries including Niger and Mauritania could fall under their influence.

As the French Defence Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, described the hostage-taking as an “act of war”, Belmokhtar was reported to be “ready to negotiate” in return for an end to the action in Mali.

Last night Mauritanian news website Sahara Media said Belmokhtar had claimed responsibility in the name of al Qa’ida for the hostage-taking in a video. He had said: “We in al Qa’ida announce this blessed operation. We are ready to negotiate with the West and the Algerian government provided they stop their bombing of Mali’s Muslims. We had around 40 jihadists, most of them from Muslim countries and some even from the West.”

A BP spokesman would not comment on reports in Algeria that Belmokhtar’s men had infiltrated the gas plant as drivers, cooks and guards working on short-term contracts.

Mr Cameron spelt out the scale of the challenge posed by al-Qa’ida-affiliated groups operating in the region. “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months,” he said. “And it requires a response that is painstaking, that is tough but also intelligent, but above all has an absolutely iron resolve. And that is what we will deliver over these coming years.

“What we face is an extremist, Islamist, al-Qa’ida-linked terrorist group. Just as we had to deal with that in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, so the world needs to come together to deal with this threat in North Africa… We need to work with others to defeat the terrorists and to close down the ungoverned spaces where they thrive with all the means that we have.”

The Government has not ruled out giving extra help to the French-led operation in Mali.

However, Whitehall sources said the terrorist threat in the region would ultimately be best tackled by diplomatic means. Britain is to beef up its presence in nations where the UK historically had a limited presence and to liaise more closely with Paris over the challenges faced by the traditionally Francophone area.

Abdelasiem el-Difraoui, an al-Qa’ida expert with the Berlin Institute for Media and Communications Studies, told a French newspaper that the hostage-taking would for France make as “a huge bang as strong as September 11”.

The French Government distanced itself from suggestions among other nations caught up in the hostage crisis that Algeria’s response was “heavy-handed”.

President François Hollande said: “When so many hostages have been taken and when the terrorists are ready to murder them in cold blood, I think the Algerian approach was the best one.”
Britons in the desert

Garry Barlow: Semtex was strapped to his chest

Garry Barlow, 49, was a systems supervisor for BP Exploration Algeria, Statoil and Sonatrach JV. He lived in the Mossley Hill area of Liverpool with his wife Lorraine, and sons Scott, 17, and Paul, 15.

He had been working in In Amenas since October 2011, and had worked previously for Addax Petroleum and Shell EP on the west coast of Central Africa.

He was captured with some of his colleagues including 29-year-old project services contracts administrator Mark Grant, who is believed to have survived the ordeal.

Initial reports suggested Mr Barlow was safe and well and was being repatriated by the Foreign Office, but he is now thought to have died as Algerian troops tried to regain control of the compound.

The last his wife heard from him was a message in which he said: “I’m sitting here at my desk with Semtex strapped to my chest. The local army have already tried and failed to storm the plant and they’ve said that if that happens again they are going to kill us all.”

Paul Morgan: Former soldier died fighting

The first British victim of the Algerian hostage crisis was described last night as a “true gentleman” who “loved life and lived it to the full”.

Paul Morgan, 46, from Liverpool, a former soldier with the French Foreign Legion, reportedly “went down fighting” when the bus he was travelling in was attacked by the kidnappers last Wednesday.

His mother Marianne and partner Emma Steele, 36, paid tribute to him: “Paul died doing the job he loved. We are so proud of him and so proud of what he achieved in his life. He will be truly missed.”

Kenneth Whiteside: Shot as army stormed compound

Kenneth Whiteside had been living in Johannesburg with his wife and two daughters but was originally from Glenrothes in Fife.

An Algerian colleague at the plant is said to have witnessed the BP project services manager “being shot” by his captors as commandos stormed the compound.

The 59-year-old was educated at Auchmuty High School and studied engineering at Glenrothes Technical College between 1970 and 1974.

Friends posted tribute messages on his Facebook account on Saturday. Steward Goodwin in South Africa wrote: “How will we understand this? My heartfelt condolences go to the family and friends who are trying to come to terms with this senseless murder.”

Billy Hunter wrote: “We’ll always remember him and his bagpipes.” “It’s hard to understand such senseless waste of life,” added Joe McMahon.

…

Nigel Morris, John Lichfield
Monday, 21 January 2013

Find this story at 21 January 2013

© independent.co.uk

Missile manufacturer, police forces and golf video company among more than 130 groups licensed to use technology

A surveillance drone used by Merseyside police, one of three forces that have permission to use UAVs. Photograph: John Giles/PA

Defence firms, police forces and fire services are among more than 130 organisations that have permission to fly small drones in UK airspace, the Guardian can reveal.

The Civil Aviation Authority list of companies and groups that have sought approval for the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, has not been published before – and it reflects the way the technology is now being used. The BBC, the National Grid and several universities are now certified to use them – as is Video Golf Marketing, which provides fly-over videos of golf courses.

Including multiple or expired licences, the CAA has granted approval to fly small UAVs more than 160 times.

“People are going to see more and more of these small vehicles operating around the country,” said John Moreland, general secretary of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems Association (UAVS), a trade body with more than 100 members. “There are any number of uses for them, and the technology is getting easier to use and cheaper all the time. These vehicles can operate anywhere in the UK, within reason.”

However, privacy campaigners have grave concerns about the proliferation of the technology and want an urgent review of regulations. “The increasing use of drones by private companies and government bodies poses a unique set of problems,” said Eric King, head of research at campaign group Privacy International.

“The CAA considers health and safety issues when deciding whether or not to grant licences to operate drone technology, but this is a very low bar. We need new regulation to ensure privacy and other civil liberties are also taken into account during the decision-making process.”

In the last two years the CAA has required anyone who wants to fly a small UAV in British airspace to apply for permission. The aircraft must weigh less than 20kg and operators have to abide by certain rules. These include not flying them higher than 122 metres (400ft), or further away from the operator than 500 metres – this is deemed the pilot’s “line of sight”.

The CAA list shows that three police forces, Merseyside, Staffordshire and Essex, have permission to use UAVs, as do three fire services, Dorset, West Midlands and Hampshire.

Some of Europe’s biggest defence companies can also fly them, including BAE Systems, Qinetiq and missile manufacturer MBDA. A company that supplies UAVs and other equipment to the Ministry of Defence, Marlborough Communications, is also registered, along with crime-scene and counter-terrorism specialist GWR & Associates.

Shane Knight, a spokesman for Marlborough, said: “If you can put these systems up in the sky, and they are safe, then they have many uses. If you are a police force, a fire or ambulance service, and, for instance, you are responding to a large fire, then you have a choice of sending out your people to do reconnaissance of an area, or you could use one of these small UAVs. Why put people in danger when you can use one of these systems? These UAVs are getting much better, and much smaller.”

The National Grid uses them to inspect power lines, while the Scottish Environment Protection Agency wants one to patrol and photograph remote areas, said Susan Stevens, a scientist in the agency’s marine ecology department. “The UAV equipment is currently being trialled,” she said.

“As an operational service it will have many uses, such as capturing aerial imagery of estuaries, wetlands and riverbanks, and to provide a snapshot of the environment before and after development work,” she said.

Moreland said the unmanned systems suffered from the perception that they were all “killer robots” flying in the sky, but he thought this would diminish as the public got used to seeing them.

“We are going to see all sorts of systems coming out over the years,” he said. “The operating bubble is going to expand like mad. Some of these systems will be able to look after themselves, and others will rely on the quality of the operators.

“You don’t have to be a qualified pilot … The person could come from a modelling background, or he may be a video game player. There are plenty of people you could imagine being able to control these systems in a delicate way.”

Gordon Slack, who owns Video Golf Marketing, said he had taught himself to use his UAV. “Once you know how to operate it, it is not too complicated. We’ve done six videos for golf courses, with a few more in the pipeline.”

…

(Owner ID number/Company name)

1 HoverCam

2 Meggitt Defence Systems

3 EagleEye (Aerial Photography) Ltd

4 Remote Services Limited

5 High Spy RC Aerial Photography

6 Magsurvey Limited

7 Pi In The Sky

8 Qinetiq

9 Eye In The Sky

10 AngleCam

11 Helicam Ltd

12 Flying Minicameras Ltd

13 S & C Thermofluids Ltd

14 Remote Airworks (pty) Ltd

15 National Grid

16 Dragonfly Aerial Photography

17 BlueBear Systems Research

18 William Walker

19 European UAV Systems Centre Ltd

20 In-House Films Ltd

21 MBDA UK Ltd

22 European UAV Systems Centre

23 Dorset Fire & Rescue Service

24 Conocophillips Limited

25 Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service

26 West Midlands Fire Service

27 Advanced Ceramics Research

28 UA Systems Ltd (Swisscopter)

29 Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd

30 Flight Refuelling Limited

31 BAE Systems (Operations) Ltd

32 Lindstrand Technologies Ltd

33 Upper Cut Productions

34 Cranfield University

35 Peregrine Media Ltd

36 Horizon Aerial Photography

37 Rory Game

38 Alan Stevens

39 Helipix LLP

40 Re-use*

41 Mike Garner

42 Cyberhawk Innovations Ltd

43 Staffordshire Police TPU

44 Merseyside Police

45 Health and Safety Laboratory

46 David Hogg

47 MRL Ltd

48 MRL Ltd

49 Re-use*

50 Dominic Blundell

51 Re-use*

52 Re-use*

53 Skylens Aerial Photography

54 Bonningtons Aerial Surveys

55 Small UAV Enterprises

56 British Technical Films

57 CARVEC Systems Ltd

58 Flying-Scots’Cam

59 Pulse Corporation Ltd (t/a Overshoot Photography)

60 Motor Bird Ltd

61 Advanced Aerial Imagery

62 AM-UAS Limited

63 Re-use*

64 Gatewing NV

65 Questuav Ltd

66 Advanced UAV Technology Ltd

67 Air 2 Air

68 MW Power Systems Limited

69 Re-use*

70 Roke Manor Research Ltd

71 Re-use*

72 NPIA

73 Pete Ulrick

74 Re-use*

75 SSE Power Distribution

76 University of Worcester

77 Re-use*

78 Rovision Ltd

79 Callen-Lenz Associates Ltd (Gubua Group)

80 SKM Studio

81 GWR Associates

82 Phoenix Model Aviation

83 Copycat

84 HD Skycam

85 Re-use*

86 Gary White

87 Aerial Target Systems Ltd

88 Aerial Target Systems

89 Re-use*

90 Video Golf Marketing Ltd

91 Re-use*

92 Helivisuals Ltd

93 Essex Police

94 Marlborough Comms Ltd

95 Re-use*

96 Siemans Wind Power A/S

97 Altimeter UK Ltd t/a Visionair

98 T/A Remote Imaging

99 Re-use*

100 Daniel Baker

101 Sky Futures

102 Aerovironment Inc

103 Spherical Images Ltd

104 Flying Camera Systems

105 Highviz Photography

106 ESDM Ltd

107 Flying Camera Systems Limited

108 Edward Martin

109 Digital Mapping and Survey Ltd

110 EDF NNB GenCo Ltd

111 EDF

112 Re-use*

113 AerialVue Ltd

114 Minerva NI Limited

115 Flying Fern Films Ltd

116 Out Filming Ltd

117 Hexcam Ltd

118 McKenzie Geospatial Surveys Ltd

119 Resource UAS

120 Plum Pictures

121 Jonathan Malory

122 Mas-UK Ltd

123 Bailey Balloons Ltd

124 David Bush

125 Southampton University

126 Helipov

127 Costain Ltd

128 Sky-Futures

129 Jonathan Blaxill

130 Roke Manor Research Ltd

131 Colin Bailie

132 British Broadcasting Corp

133 Simon Hailey

134 Re-use*

135 Trimvale Aviation

136 PSH Skypower Ltd

137 Aerosight Ltd

171 Re-use*

173 Colin Bailie

174 Simon Field

175 Re-use*

176 Aerial Graphical Services

177 Think Aerial Photography

178 Hedge Air Limited

179 Scottish Environment Protection Agency

180 Skypower Limited

181 Elevation Images

182 Universal Sky Pictures

183 MBDA UK Ltd

184 Helicammedia

185 Oculus Systems Ltd

186 MASA Ltd

187 Doozee Aerial Systems Ltd

188 Selex Galileo

189 Whisperdrone

190 Z-Axis

191 Rotarama Ltd

192 Re-use*

193 BBC (Natural History Unit)

194 Flying Camera Company

195 Flying Camera Company

* Short-term approval that was granted, but now no longer applies

Source: CAA

Nick Hopkins
The Guardian, Friday 25 January 2013 20.02 GMT

Find this story at 25 January 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Multimillion-pound plans by three police forces to outsource services to the firm at the centre of the Olympics security debacle have collapsed.

Hertfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd said the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Strategic Alliance had discontinued negotiations with G4S.

The three forces were looking in to working with G4S in a bid to save £73 million by outsourcing support functions.

The proposals involved switching 1,100 roles, including human resources, IT and finance to the security contractor.

But doubts were raised after the company was forced to admit severe failings over the Olympics security contract last summer, which led to police officers and 3,500 extra troops being deployed to support the operation.

In a statement, Mr Lloyd said: “I have always said that I would make my decision once the evidence was received and assessed.

“It is now clear that the G4S framework contract through Lincolnshire Police was not suitable for the unique position of the three forces.”

But he added that outsourcing to other companies would still be considered.

Mr Lloyd said: “I am already in discussion with other market providers and will continue to talk with G4S about how they can assist policing support services in Hertfordshire. My clear position is that all elements of support work will be considered for outsourcing or other use of the market.

“I made my decision based on evidence and on the recommendations from the Chief Constables. I still believe that substantial elements of policing support services will be best delivered by the private sector and will ensure that this option is immediately pursued.

“We will now move forward looking at organisational support services, as before.”

Police and Crime Commissioner for Bedfordshire, Olly Martins, said: “The concerns that I had about this proposal are on record but I am pleased that following the evaluation and subsequent discussions, the three Police and Crime Commissioners have ended up in agreement with a shared view that this contract does not deliver what we need.

“However, we do still have to save money. Strengthening the ways in which we collaborate with Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire is a crucial element of our on-going investment in all our police services.

“I now look forward to working with my fellow commissioners to develop new and innovative ways in which we can progress our collaborative approach.”

The force’s Chief Constable Alf Hitchcock said: “As an Alliance we have been working together to explore a range of options for making savings at a time when all three forces are facing significant financial challenges.

“Along with my Chief Constable colleagues in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire and the three commissioners, we are continuing to explore other opportunities, whilst in Bedfordshire we are using the Option 10 and Lean processes to achieve savings in-house and protect front line policing.”

Kim Challis, chief executive of G4S Government and outsourcing solutions, said: “We have put forward a compelling proposition to the police forces of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire which would have guaranteed them savings of over £100 million over the next ten years, allowing them to meet the financial challenge of the Comprehensive Spending Review without compromising on efficiency or public safety.

“Our proposition was to operate back office services at the volume and scale required to deliver significant savings to forces, enabling them to concentrate their resources on frontline roles: it was never about replacing police officers. This has already proved to be the case in Lincolnshire, where we have a successful partnership which, in less than a year, has seen us deliver savings in running costs of around 16%.

…

Jennifer Cockerell
Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Find this story at 30 January 2013

© independent.co.uk