The Case of Anders Breivik
In my view, whether Anders Breivik is sane or not is irrelevant. And the British courts generally take that view as multiple murderers are either declared criminally insane and sent to places like Broadmoor or just sentenced to spent the rest of their lives in jail.
I suppose that in many ways Broadmoor might be preferable from the murderer’s point of view, but in truth the result is the same.
But still the Norwegians persist in a trial, that gives Breivik the ability to expound his views.
Another Mass Shooting In the United States
Sadly, there is has been another mass shooting in the United States, this time in Oakland.
When is the country going to get the simple relation, that guns kill people?
They send an awful message to the rest of the world. Look at the latest film from Hollywood; The Hunger Games. Quite frankly it is sick. Why has it been given a certificate in the UK?
The United States Looks After Its Own
The fact that Sergeant Robert Bales, has been quickly returned to the US is no surprise to me.
In areas around the US bases in the UK in the 1970s, there were a couple of cases of death by dangerous driving caused by US servicemen.
No prosecution in the UK ever happened and in one case familiar to my late wife, a barrister in Suffolk at the time, nothing more was heard of the case, after the perpetrator was returned quickly to the United States.
The current case is very different and I suspect that he will face a Court of Law.
FT Says Afghans Want Local Trial
The shooting of Afghans by a rogue US serviceman, is absolutely awful and I dread to think where it will lead. I think if I was a soldier out there now, I’d be watching a few Black Adder Goes Forth videos, to get myself invalided home.
The FT this morning is claiming that the Afghan government want a local trial.
I hope that Afghanistan doesn’t have the death penalty!
Is This a Solution to Bigots Like Abu Qatada?
Michael Burleigh writing in the Sunday Times today, takes a broad look at terrorists who have come to or are in the UK.
He makes one point that I wholly sympathise with. If someone says lets kill all people with a penchant for wearing purple socks, then they should be prosecuted for incitement to murder.
So why hasn’t Abu Qatada been prosecuted, if as some allege he has incited others for murder? Surely if found guilty and sentenced, he could then be returned to his homeland. We now have a precedent in that in this case in Derby, three men were jailed for urging people to hang homosexuals.
These cases would be very much helped if phone-tap evidence were allowed. I can never understand why it isn’t After all, if the United States can use it, to convict the Mafia, why can’t we use it with possible mass murderers. It might have the side-effect that they all got paranoid about talking to each other.
Is This Closure On The Stephen Lawrence Case?
The conviction yesterday of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, only brings a closure to another chapter in the story of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence.
I doubt though this will be the end of it, as too many with vested interests on all sides will not be able to let matters lie.
Another Senseless Multiple Gun Murder
In the North East over Christmas, Michel Atherton apparently murdered three others and then killed himself with legally-held weapons.
For many years, the National Farmers Union has always felt that shotguns and other legally-held weapons, should be kept in a locked cabinet, with two separate keys, that must be held by two people.
Their reasons are mainly to do with preventing suicide amongst farmers and others in the countryside, who have fallen on hard times or are depressed.
Sensibly applied, these rules might well help to prevent tragedies. Especially, if the two key holders live in different dwellings.
An acquaintance of mine was murdered because a shot gun was easily available. If this rule had applied, he might still be alive.
There’s Always Some Bad News at Christmas
This year it was the pointless but deadly bombings in Nigeria. It’s when things like this happen, how anybody with any knowledge of the world’s great religions could see them as anything other than unwarranted mass murder.
Amanda Knox and the US Justice System
I have no idea if Amanda Knox was guilty of murder or not.
The Americans put a lot of support behind her in an effort to persuade the Italians to free her, from a possible miscarriage of justice.
But then so many of the people in US jails have been failed by their own justice system. Several have been executed lately who didn’t get a trial with the care shown by the Italians.
But then Amanda Knox was white and intelligent, whereas most of those who suffer injustice in the States are black and illiterate and defended by lawyers, who aren’t the best to say the least.
But then the victim in the Amanda Knox case wasn’t American. We also don’t know how much pressure was put on the Italians. After all their economy is rather rocky and if the United States withdrew support, it would have been serious.
Heroic Lesbians
A friend pointed me to this story entitled Heroic Lesbians; wherefore the silence, on a Luxembourg web site.
It describes how a married lesbian couple, got in their boat and rescued dozens of teenagers, who were swimming away from the guns of Anders Behring Breivik on the island of Utoya.
The article questions why the story has not been picked up by mainstream media.
My view is that it wasn’t because of their sexuality, as suggested in the story, but because the rescue was carried out by two women and that just doesn’t fit with those that run the average newspaper. One heroic woman is front page news, but two show up men in a bad light!
The Anonymous Widower 