Link: Jean Charles de Menezes inquest: 44 police officers granted anonymity - Telegraph.

If these policemen were employed by a totalitarian state (e.g. Zimbabwe) our press would call them a "death squad." Here, in our democracy, no-one even seems surprised that, not only will they face no criminal charges for gunning down an innocent man, they will not even face his family across a coroner's court. Where are the "War on Terror" merchants now to tell these officers that "if they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear?" Why don't they come out of the shadows to challenge the following statement?

"...the officers at the scene conspired to perjure themselves in stating that warnings of "Police" or "Armed Police" were given before firing and that de Menezes moved towards them in response. Seventeen witnesses, given no chance to collude, all confirmed he was shot dead without warning. Anyone with experience of criminal trials will tell you that such unanimity is almost unheard of. Policemen who give false evidence under oath are not worthy of our support..."

The Jean-Charles de Menezes case is what finally brought home to me what my country has become. A nation of cowards prepared to sacrifice truth, justice and liberty in the vain hope of safety from enemies real and imagined. A nation ruled by a political class devoid of honour or principle; a political class quite capable of lying about terrorist threats in order to justify self-serving actions. A nation which will allow its leaders to throw away everything (Magna Carta, habeas corpus, jury trials, the right to silence, the rule on double jeopardy, the presumption of innocence) which ever made it worthy of respect.