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Five Burlington cases dismissed national |
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news report
 Thursday January 30, 2003 13:46 by Andrew
 Five cases against activists arising out of the police riot at the anti-capitalist protest at the Burlington hotel (Oct 2001) were dismissed in court today. Details below based on a mobile call from outside the court. Four of the cases, including that of a WSM member, relied on the evidence of a cop who was supposed to be the arresting officer. His evidence fell apart when he claimed to have made the arrests within one minute of the scuffle at the doors of the hotel. Anyone who was there at the night knows that the police charge and subsequent arrests happened a good deal after the scuffle. The cops evidence was full of other inconsistencies, when the defence pointed out that if this was a jury trial the case would already have been dismissed the judge then moved to lecture the cops and dismiss it. The fifth case to be dismissed was of another protester charged with carrying an 'offensive weapon' ie some tiny pocket knife. Details of the original demonstration at http://struggle.ws/wsm/news/2001/butlingtonOCT.html |
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Jump To Comment: 1Just to say that i was one of the activists cleared this morning. The difference in being convicted or dismissed seems to have come down to the strength of the case put by the defence lawyer in exposing the 'inconsistencies' of the cops case.
Also the video evidence was helpful, though not in our case decisive.
The cops are likely to try and build a much more 'consistent' case the next time they decide to attack the movement. We should try and have a lot of digital cameras on hand for the fifteenth and other protests, and i think in the case of large demos and possible direct actions beware of provocations.