Monday, March 08, 2010 

Ricin you say? Oh, he's white, we're not interested.

Remember the "ricin plot" where there was no ricin, where the recipe which Kamel Bourgass had could not have produced ricin and where his plan, to smear it on doorknobs and car door handles wouldn't have killed anyone as the poison needs to be either injected, ingested or inhaled to work? It was the first real "terror plot" post-9/11 in this country, came two months before the invasion of Iraq (in the context of which it was used by Colin Powell during his now notorious presentation to the UN), and the press coverage was massive in both response and in its hyperbole, the government doing its best to help it along by not bothering to inform anyone until Bourgass' trial was over that there had been no ricin after all.

You would then expect a case where ricin actually was found to provoke a similar media response. After all, while ricin is not the most deadly of potential "biological/chemical" warfare poisons, it is still usually deadly when used "properly", as in the assassination of Georgi Markov, a cold war precursor to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

It's strange then that almost no coverage whatsoever has been given to the case of Ian Davison, although perhaps that name itself somewhat gives the game away. Unlike Bourgass, Davison actually produced ricin, which was found in a jam jar in a cupboard in his kitchen. He today pleaded guilty to producing a chemical weapon, possessing the usual array of explosives manuals, including the Anarchist's Handbook and the Mudgahein's (sic) Explosives Handbook and preparing for acts of terrorism. It seems, if indeed you needed telling, that Davison is the latest in a string of extreme right-wingers to be brought before the courts on explosive or terrorist charges, although little seems to be known in this instance about what groups, if any Davison was associated with, with the police only hinting when he was arrested that it could be related to "a worldwide terror plot targeting ethnic minorities", something which we should probably take with a pinch of salt. Davison's son is also to face charges of "possessing material containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing acts of terrorism", after which he'll be sentenced.

Our old friend Kamel Bourgass was sentenced to a quite incredible 17 years for his impossible and implausible plot to kill using the ricin which he didn't have, on top of the life imprisonment he received for murdering PC Stephen Oake. One wonders what sentence will be passed on Davison, considering he actually had ricin in his possession, even if he didn't have the flawed plan which Bourgass has. The Met's then head of anti-terrorism Peter Clarke claimed after Bourgass' conviction, with a straight face, that a "real and deadly threat" had been averted. If it had then, one wonders in what terms a police chief with a similar agenda and a sense for exaggeration would describe Davison's conviction.

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Friday, January 15, 2010 

Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

Via Next Left, it's 76 years to the day since the Mail declared its support for those ahead of their time left-wingers known as the British Union of Fascists. By coincidence, the latest far-right nutjob to be found in possession of "improvised explosive devices", joining the ranks over the last few years of Neil Lewington, Robert Cottage and Martyn Gilleard was today convicted and sentenced to 11 years.

Unlike the others, whom were either connected to different far-right groups or whose membership to the British National Party had lapsed, Terence Gavan was a fully paid up member of the party, as the last leaked membership list makes clear (XLSB), a Mr Gavan appearing on the list from West Yorkshire with the postcode WF17 7HQ, which covers Healey Lane in Batley. Indeed, Gavan wasn't just a normal member but rather a "Gold" member, having opted to pay the £60 fee in return for his spangly yellow party badge. Still, the BNP, despite being unwilling to admit that Gavan was what they call an "elite" member, with the news being strangely absent from their current home page, admitted that the charges against him were "serious" and that the sentence passed "correct". Whether the members themselves agree is another matter.

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