Planted witnesses and their utilities

[Paul Rigby]

A thread devoted to concrete examples and discussion of their utilities.

I had intended to lead off with quote from a newspaper report on the assassination of Chris Hani, but I can't find the blessed thing. So, in its absence, let me begin with this classic from 9/11:

1) 9/11 WTC: The Harley Guy

...come out of nowhere and just ream right into the side of the twin tower, exploding through the other side...and then I witnessed both towers collapse, one first then the second, mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0wHeekgP...re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwq04_KhC...re=related

2) The De Menezes murder

30 July 2005

Anthony Larkin: Rentaquote & London Terror?

Here is an interesting little development.

A much quoted eye-witness to the police murder of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes may have a little more depth of character than just someone who happened to be there.

A Mr Anthony Larkin, allegedly "a care assistant, from Hartlepool, Teesside" is cited in a large number of stories about the murder of de Menezes saying, "bomb belt with wires coming out", presumably about de Menezes who wasn't wearing a bulky jacket that immediately turns the wearer into a terrorist, nor did he jump ticket barriers as was widely reported at the time.

Larkin's quote is listed elsewhere as:
"I saw the police officers shouting, 'Get down, get down!', and I saw this guy who appears to have a bomb belt and wires coming out."
Source: CBS News
and,
“The officers were shouting, ‘Get down, get down’. I immediately hit the ground. I saw the man fall over and then I heard two shots that I believe went into his back.

“There was lots of panicking, people ran screaming out of the station and they were keeping their heads down. I just got up and joined them, running as fast as I could.”
Source: Times Online

and,
"I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."
Source: BBC News

As we all know, Larkin's account transpired to be completely false, a fact supported by other eye-witnesses quoted at the time [BBC, Sierra Times, CBS, Fox] and the total lack of anything vaguely suspicious found on de Menezes dead body after it had been pumped full of bullets at close range.

What is especially interesting is that an Anthony Larkin has been quoted by the BBC and other news sources before. Last time round was in relation to the murder of Louise Tiffney where, at the time, Anthony Larkin was working on behalf of a private company, Forensic Alliance Ltd and is reported to have worked on "400 crime scene investigations".

Might these two Anthony Larkins happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin?

Might these two Anthony Larkins quoted from separate crime scenes also happen to be one and the same Anthony Larkin as that of Lead Scientist, Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Department fame, and who is listed as such at Queen Mary University of London?

If so, this would explain why the Anthony Larkin at the scene of de Menezes murder was responsible for the oft-quoted and entirely misleading eye-witness account of the unfortunate victim's appearance.

There is no question that Larkin's account lends at least a little to the illusion that there might have been some justification for plain clothes police officers to murder an innocent, unarmed and defenceless man, but only if Larkin's statement is accepted at face value, without question, and without fully validating the source of the information.

Oh, just for the record, Larkin's words are sourced from an interview given to Radio 5 Live, the same radio station via which Peter Power added his two-penneth worth to the day's events.
Posted by The Antagonist at 8:56:00 PM

5 comments:

Anonymous said...
Great site - I notice Anthony Larkin's entry on the QMC site has vanished. Probably just a coincidence.
Thursday, August 11, 2005 5:16:00 PM
The Antagonist said...
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

Interestingly, a Google search for "Anthony Larkin" no longer even throws back links to the Queen Mary University profile pages which, originally, were the among the first few results to appear on the day this article was penned.

Larkin's QMU profile, linked from the old, working version of the Google search for Larkin, is back online, along with his VCard which temporarily disappeared from the QMU site.

The BBC are at it too.

Oh, and reporters at 60 weekly Trinity Mirror Southern titles were all told to go home on July 7.

Why? And at the request of whom?

Sunday, August 14, 2005 9:03:00 PM
Anonymous said...
I also noticed this false witness, and came across your blog whilst researching it.

But I think it unlikely that the police forensic scientist Anthony Larkin was the planted witness, if it where he would not have used his real name. But a person inventing a false name is likely to give one he has heard before.

I wonder when the statement on five live was made, did they have enough time to organise this, or was it an excuse on stand by in advance of the shooting.

What ever is true I suspect to get to the bottom of this incident the person who gave the name Anthony Larkin must be found? and the met police seem to be a good place to look for him.

Thursday, August 18, 2005 4:08:00 PM
The Antagonist said...
Anonymous - What's interesting to note from the ITV reconstructions of what happened on the morning of 22 July is quite how many operatives were a) already present on the train and b) following de Menezes.

From the ITV reconstruction, it would appear that nearly all of the passengers in de Menezes carriage were in fact operatives, bar whoever was sat directly opposite him.

Thursday, August 18, 2005 4:36:00 PM
Anonymous said...
I heard this on the radio at the time and tried to get the BBC to source the quote for me. I got very offhand and unhelpful responses from them Recently I know that Michael Mansfield QC was given the information about this person. Mr Mansfield is acting for the de Menezes family.
Monday, October 13, 2008 4:47:00 PM

http://antagonise.blogspot.com/2005/07/a...on_30.html

There is at least one eyewitness to 22/11/63 who springs to mind who offers a curious phrase suggestive of pre-positioning. Of him, more anon.

[Paul Rigby]

A thread devoted to concrete examples and discussion of their utilities...

2) The De Menezes murder

30 July 2005

Anthony Larkin: Rentaquote & London Terror?

http://www.blogigo.co.uk/socialdemocracy...TIONAL/18/

There was more than one, it would appear, at the shooting of the Brazilian electrician. I particularly remember the testimony of the man named Wells:

Aug 19, 2005 at 05:32 o\clock

THE MURDER OF DE MENEZES HAS TO HAVE BEEN INTENTIONAL
by: socialdemocracynow

The controversy surrounding the police murder in London of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes is not going to go away soon. Thanks to the leaking of inside police documents this week, we have learned that the police account of the slaying, which was already falling apart, is at odds with the real story in every conceivable detail. The shocking mendacity of the U.K. police now forces us to ask hard questions about the integrity of the eyewitnesses, whose accounts were apparently given immediately after the shooting itself, which tended to depict de Menezes as dangerous or highly suspicious - thereby supporting what we now know was a police cover up.

As Fintan Dunne reminds us, Mark Whitby, a man widely reported in the media as the member of the public who was closest to the murder, gave an account of what he had seen shortly afterwards that conformed exactly to the official police story. (BBC report here) Whitby's claims - which included the suggestive claim that the man had looked like a Pakistani - therefore inclined many people to accept at face value the story that the police had been engaged in an attempt to eliminate a potential suicide bomber.

But we now know that Whitby's story was a crock of lies. Its convergence with the police cover story means that at some stage before he was interviewed by the media he has to have been instructed by somebody as to what to say. It's even likely that he was briefed before the murder took place.

Let's look at the alternatives here. If Whitby was a genuine commuter who just happened have been sitting nearest the spot where the shooting took place, how is that within hours of the event (I don't know exactly when the BBC interviewed him but it was within an hour or two), he had begun spouting a version of the shooting that was completely at odds with anything he could have seen? While he could have been taken aside by the police very shortly after the murder and coached as to what to tell the media, what are the chances that the police would risk pressuring an ordinary member of the public to tell complete lies to the BBC and other media organizations, which would involve that person accepting the risk of being exposed as a liar if he were ever asked to repeat his account in the context of legal proceedings that could potentially arise from such a murder? Most genuine eyewitness would baulk at telling a story which they knew to be at odds with what they had just seen with their own eyes. Yet Whitby tells his story with considerable gusto, suggesting a man who had no qualms whatsoever about recounting a fabrication and no concerns about his account being queried in court. How many bona fide commuters would agree to tell a bogus story and, if pressured to do so, would manage to pull off such a convincing performance?

The only alternative to a coerced witness scenario is that Whitby was planted at Stockwell station as part of the operation so as to ensure that his account would be the first put into circulation by the media (which indeed it was). This means is that the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes was premeditated and that it was the intended result of an operation that had been planned in meticulous detail, down to the fabrication of a cover story that would explain away the killing, as well as the provision of planted witnesses.

And I write 'witnesses' because there may be several other planted witnesses in addition to Whitby. Other witness accounts are also suspect:

'Commuter Anthony Larkin, who was also on the train at Stockwell station, told 5 Live he saw police chasing a man. "I saw these police officers in uniform and out of uniform shouting 'get down, get down', and I saw this guy who appeared to have a bomb belt and wires coming out and people were panicking and I heard two shots being fired."' (BBC report here)

A bomb belt and wires coming out????

A certain Chris Wells - described as a '28 year old corporate manager' - claims to have seen de Menezes 'jump over the [tube station] barriers and the police officers were chasing after him and everyone was just shouting ‘get out, get out”.'

Jumped over the barriers????

One of the most bizarre accounts came from a certain Teri Godly, who told Sky News that 'A tall Asian guy, shaved head, slight beard, with a rucksack got in front of me.'

Asian? Shaved head? Slight beard? A rucksack????

The BBC also interviewed another alleged commuter, Dan Copeland, whose account also contains a detail at odds with the real story, which is that de Menezes had grabbed the throat of another commuter.

What????

It is impossible to reconcile such witness statements with the legend of a police 'mistake.' Their accounts lent too much support to the subsequent police cover up story to have been coincidental.

The way things look to me now is that 1) there was a covert operation to eliminate de Menezes and no one else and 2) those responsible would rather have the police seen to have killed an innocent man while overzealously pursuing their duty to protect the public rather than admit that there was a covert operation that successfully brought about de Menezes's elimination.

This leaves the question of why the police might have wanted de Menezes dead. In this piece, F. Napoli of Gibraltar speculates as to whether, as a contract electrician, de Menezes may have known something about the power surge that appears to have been the trigger for the July 7 bombings. This suggestion seems virtually the only explanation for the shooting that would make sense. We badly need an inquiry into this outrageous killing and we need it fast.

[David Guyatt]

The only alternative to a coerced witness scenario is that Whitby was planted at Stockwell station as part of the operation so as to ensure that his account would be the first put into circulation by the media (which indeed it was). This means is that the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes was premeditated and that it was the intended result of an operation that had been planned in meticulous detail, down to the fabrication of a cover story that would explain away the killing, as well as the provision of planted witnesses.

Imo, bang on target (no pun intended).

Immediately afterwards and ever since, I have considered this event to be a planned judicial execution - a powerful "fright" message to the public that henceforward state murder will be sanctioned if they step off the straight and narrow. Not to mention a little added bolster to the "war on terrorism".

Fortunately, the enormous pubic furore that followed completely stamped down that new initiative.

[Paul Rigby]

Imo, bang on target (no pun intended).

Immediately afterwards and ever since, I have considered this event to be a planned judicial execution - a powerful "fright" message to the public that henceforward state murder will be sanctioned if they step off the straight and narrow. Not to mention a little added bolster to the "war on terrorism".

Fortunately, the enormous pubic furore that followed completely stamped down that new initiative.

I agree entirely as to the intention - death squads on British streets. But my distinct impression is that this intention was sabotaged from "within". Hypothetically, did we have, say, MI5, spiking the Met?

[David Guyatt]

Interesting possibility I hadn't considered.

I prefer mine though, if only because, like Mulder "I want to believe". In this case in the virtues of the great British public.

But Five spiking the Met and Blair (I'm certain the SAS were involved and that would take Downing Street approval, I think) actually does make more sense.

[Magda Hassan]

In any case they got their immunity.

[David Guyatt]

In any case they got their immunity.

Yes, all members of the Police armed response squads were already immune from prosecution at the time of De Menezes. This followed the Bony & Clyde case where an innocent man caught wielding a deadly replacement table leg bought from his local table leg shop was "confused" with a shotgun and armed police immediately shot him dead.

The police rebelled at the subsequent attempt to prosecute the officers responsible and all of them were ready to refuse to carry weapons henceforward. Bliar backed down and gave them blanket immunity in the future.

Interestingly, one of the policeman responsible for the table leg incident was also responsible for De Menezes.

Whoops.