Law - new material (47)
01 January 2004
Crimes of the powerful. Two thoughtful and incisive books on state and corporate crime have been published recently. The first, "Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful" is edited by Steve Tombs and Dave Whyte of Liverpool John Moores University, is the more theoretical tome, including contributions from some of the best known radical criminologists on the practical and theoretical aspects of scrutinising states and corporations. The second, "State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption", by Penny Green and Tony Ward, provides a more simplistic overview, exploring the range of crimes regularly committed by authorities and executives. Both are thoroughly recommended reading. "Unmasking the Crimes of the Powerful: Scrutinizing States and Corporations" was published by Peter Lang Publishing in October 2003, ISBN 0-8204-5691-8 ($44.95, paperback); "State Crime: Governments, Violence and Corruption" was published by Pluto Press in March 2004, ISBN 0-7453-1784-7 (£14.99, paperback).
This covert experiment in injustice, Gareth Peirce. Guardian 4.2.04. Gareth Peirce is the solicitor representing some of the Muslim prisoners incarcerated without trial at Belmarsh prison under the UK's Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act (ATCS) 2001. She compares their plight to that of the innocent Irish victims of the UK's war on Northern Irish "terrorism", such as the Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4, who were "buried alive in English jails" after being abused and framed. She writes of the impossible task of representing her clients: "The suggestion that I and other lawyers are representing them is in itself a travesty; neither they nor we know the evidence against them. We know only that it is claimed to be in large part based upon "intelligence", and this is why - it is argued - the men cannot be prosecuted in a trial with mandatory safeguards before the only tribunal of fact allowed to consider criminal offences in this country: a jury." She accuses the Home Office and legal establishment of "collective amnesia" and condemns the government for shedding "crocodile tears" for the British detainees in Guantanamo Bay while sending intelligence agents to interrogate them.
Was Attorney General leant on to sanction war?, Clare Short. Independent 28.2.04, p.1. Following the decision to drop all charges under the Official Secrets Act against Katherine Gunn, the GCHQ whistleblower who revealed that the spy centre had received a request from the USA to eavesdrop on uncooperative members of the UN Security Council, Short revealed that she had been privy to "disturbing transcripts of Kofi Annan's private telephone calls."