In the United States, if you’ve been arrested on illegal drug charges, the evidence against you is sent to a laboratory for testing. In Massachusetts two labs handled most of the drug cases in the state. This is the story of what went wrong. ibid. captions
25-30,000 cases have been dumped in our laps. ibid. state attorney
In Massachusetts tonight a drug lab scandal … A state police chemist is suspected of altering drug samples, faking test results and listing some drug samples as positive even though she never tested them. ibid. television news
People were in prison based on drugs certificates signed by Sonja Farak. ibid. lawyer
I knew the Amherst lab was underfunded and didn’t have sort of basics. ibid. Insider
35 year old Sonja Farak was arrested on two counts of evidence tampering and two counts of drug possession. How to Fix a Drug Scandal II
Annie Dookhan: classifications that were going on that weren’t completely accurate. ibid. lawyer
Dookhan: she was faking, she was cheating … she was simply signing off and getting these cases out the door. ibid. dude
[Judge] Kinder decides that these criminal acts of Farak’s only go back to July 2012. ibid.
2011: I’d already exhausted the methamphetamine, amphetamine and ketamine standards, and then I did start trying to smoke crack cocaine … There was not a lot of it … and quickly became very addicted … I actually smoked in the evidence room. How to Fix a Drug Scandal III, Farak
She began cooking powdered cocaine into crack at her work station. ibid. dude
Chemist Annie Dookhan was sentenced to a three-to-five year prison term for falsifying drug tests affecting tens of thousands of criminal cases. But there has been little movement to deal with all of the convictions based on the lab’s testing. ibid. news report
Northampton chemist Sonja Farak gets 18 months in jail. ibid. newspaper headline
It took years to work out what cases she [Farak] had worked on. How is this possible? ibid. defense guy
They [the state] argue they [victims] can all be retrialled one at a time. How to Fix a Drugs Scandal IV, news report
There were thousands and thousands of criminal cases whose convictions are probably invalid. ibid. defence dude
She [Farak] was definitely a drug addict. And my natural tendency is to really sympathise with drug addicts, and feel like they are suffering. ibid.
Judge Carey issued his decision – the Carey Report – it vindicated Luke Ryan and found that Anne Kaczmarek and Kris Foster had committed ‘a fraud upon the court’. ibid.
Judge Carey dismissed the charges against Rolando Panate ‘with prejudice’. After 5 years in custody, Rolando was released. Rolando was among the last defendants to be released from prison because of tainted drug evidence from the Amherst lab. ibid. caption
But there were still tens of thousands of people with felony convictions on their records based on drug evidence tested by Sonja Farak or Annie Dookhan. ibid.
The largest mass dismissal of criminal convictions in US history. ibid.
What made Guantanamo such a travesty – and what still makes it such – is that it is a system of indefinite detention whereby human beings are put in cages for years and years without ever being charged with a crime. Glenn Greenwald
In Britain a series of scandals revealed that dozens of innocent people had been held in jail. Some for over 15 years: they included the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6. Most of them were Irishmen who had been accused of being members of the IRA and planting bombs in English cities. Every time they had tried to prove their innocence, they had been blocked by some of the most senior figures in the British establishment despite overwhelming evidence of false confessions and fake evidence. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head V: The Lordly Ones ***** BBC 2021
At the heart of para-sport lies a system that decides which athletes compete against each other – it’s under pressure. With a greater range of athletes than ever competing, the sport’s governing bodies is accused of overseeing a system that can be deeply unfair. Athletes who have complained say they’ve been warned to stay silent. Paralympics: The Unfair Games? BBC 2021
‘People are appearing almost able-bodied; you are barely able to tell what their disability is.’ ibid. competitor
Spanish paralympic basketball team, Sydney Olympics: ten of the team pretended to be mentally disabled. ibid.
Julian Assange refused permission to appeal against US extradition by UK’s top court: Assange is wanted in America following Wikileaks’ publication of classified files:
Britain’s top court has refused Wikipeaks’ founder Julian Assange permission to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the US to face spying charges.
A Supreme Court spokesperson said that senior judges had refused Assange’s bid to challenge the decision as his case did not raise ‘an arguable point of law’. Independent online article 14 March 2022
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him. Socrates
‘They caught me and said, You did it; in you go.’ Presumed Guilty, Antonio, 2008
‘Policemen and other authorities in our justice system are rewarded for the number of arrests they make.’ ibid. Layda, lawyer/documentary maker
93% of defendants never see a judge. ibid.
‘First, the prosecutor never proved Tono fired the gun; the prosecutor’s gunpowder test was negative; Second, we found a list: several witnesses said they saw Tono elsewhere that day, but the police chose not to follow up. In Mexico you have to prove your innocence. ibid. two lawyers
78% of inmates are fed by their families. ibid.
‘We have to make up or exaggerate charges.’ ibid. rozzer
93% of inmates were never shown an arrest warrant. ibid.
95% of the verdicts are convictions. ibid.
92% of accusations are based exclusively on witnesses. ibid.
‘Only what the judge said had been recorded.’ ibid. lawyer
Stop presumption of guilt in Mexico! ibid.
In 2015, something strange happened in British politics. A movement no-one expected. With a leader no-one predicted. And the start of the biggest political witch-hunt of the 21st century. Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie ***** 2023
‘Antisemitic and a racist.’ ibid. The Jewish Chronicle front page
Nobody can fail to see that this was a concerted, orchestrated campaign. ibid. Moshe Machover
Senior officials in headquarters were actively working against Labour. ibid. Ken Loach
Starmer: A dangerous deceitful man who will do anything. ibid. woman
In 2017 the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn came close to putting him Number 10. But within three years his party had been crushed at the polls, and Jeremy and his grass-roots movement apparently dumped in the wastebin of history. What happened? And what destroyed the Corbyn project? And has it been destroyed? ibid. Alexsie Sayle
This is a story of injustice and the destruction of democracy. And deception on an industrial scale. ibid. caption
But for the establishment the sudden rise of Corbyn was terrifying. ibid. Sayle
But from the start Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest threat was from his own MPs. ibid.
Corbyn didn’t win the election but he got the largest increase in the share of the vote of any Labour leader since Clement Attlee in 1945. ibid.
The Smear that Stuck: ‘There is a big lie everywhere and one of the big lies of our time is the Labour Party being infested with Anti-Semitism.’ ibid. Machover
The Anti-Semitic smear hurt Corbyn but it didn’t take him down. ibid. Sayle
10th July 2019 BBC Panorama transmitted, ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic? reporter John Ware. ibid. caption
‘Instead of that we went on the defensive. We tried to say we’re sorry.’ ibid. man
Behind closed doors, there was a secret war against him, being fought by his party’s own paid officials. ibid. Sayle
In London’s Ergon House a secret team were channelling thousands of pounds of campaign funds to the right-wing MPs of their choice. ibid.
In the end it was not paid officials who brought Corbyn down, but an MP [Starmer] who said he was on his [Corbyn’s] side. ibid.
I want to pay tribute to Jeremy Corbyn who led our party through some really difficult times. ibid. Starmer
Peter Mandelson, the architect of New Labour, has said he is working every day to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. ibid. caption
Was the colourless Starmer really an undercover saboteur? A sort of establishment spycop who infiltrated the Corbyn Project just to bring him down? ibid. Sayle
When Starmer became Labour leader in April 2020, many believed his pledges to continue Corbyn’s policies and united the Party. Starmer set out to wipe every trace of Corbyn from the Party. ibid.
Thousands of Labour Party members were witchhunted. ibid.
When QC Martin Forde at last published his findings in July 2022 it was by no means the total whitewash. ibid.