"Standing here, before all of you, I honestly thought I would be addressing you following a very different verdict." "I am, for the second time in the space of one year, utterly shocked and appalled." Lissie Harper, outside Old Bailey, London England
PC Harper got married to his fiancée Lissie just four weeks before he was killed PA Media
Death delivered to a British police officer engaged in the line of duty, protecting the public from the human scum that also lives and works within that same society, people who prey on others, proudly perform criminal acts, defy law and order, and make life and limb unsafe for others in their pursuit of a life based on the avails of crime. Lissie Harper, wife of British Constable Andrew Harper, hoping for due justice on behalf of her husband whose "barbaric" murder shocked the country was left instead once again "shocked and appalled".
She sat in court during the trial of three teens accused of first-degree murder of her husband, at the Old Bailey. All the while the three who murdered her husband smirked, laughed, dozed off and obviously were not the least bit concerned while the trial was presented with evidence against them. One juror was removed when she was seen to be continually smiling at the three killers throughout the judge's charge to the jury.
Andrew Harper, 28, died of multiple injuries August 2019.
Photograph: PA
And when the jury returned to deliver their verdict it was not the expected conviction of murder but that of the lesser charge of manslaughter. According to a former policing minister, the jury choice was sufficiently off-kilter given the situation and the evidence, to convince him to refer the trial to the Attorney General, concerned that the jury may have been tampered with; some among them under duress of threats.
Henry Long, 19, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, 18, reacted after the jury delivered its verdict by hugging, laughing and displaying all the mannerisms of people completely divorced from the realities of crime and punishment. A gang had been seen stealing a quad bike and Constable Harper responded, becoming entangled in the tow rope attached to the car driven by Henry Long. Enabling the three to conclude their exciting criminal escapade by dragging him for over a mile to his death.
Albert Bowers smiles arriving at courtHyde News & Pictures Ltd
"With his ankles caught in a strap that was
trailing behind a car being driven at speed along a country lane, he was
dragged for over a mile along the road surface, swung from side to side
like a pendulum in an effort to dislodge him, losing items of his
police uniform along the way, with the rest of his uniform being quite
literally ripped and stripped from his body."
"When, at last, he became disentangled, he was left with the most
awful injuries, from which he died there on the road, surrounded by
colleagues who tried in vain to save him."
'[The jury heard that he died naked apart from his socks and boots and
some shredded remnants of the trousers he was wearing]. This was a
completely senseless killing of a young police officer in the line of
duty." "As [Henry] Long floored the car to make good their escape, PC
Harper was lassoed around his ankles by the loop of his strap. It is the prosecution case that Long drove that car knowing
full well that PC Harper was entangled in the strap, as he drove in a
manner calculated to dislodge him, and to make good their escape, as had
been the plan all along." Brian Altman QC, prosecuting attorney
Albert Bowers (left) and Jessie Cole (centre) leaving Reading Magistrates' Court on September 19, 2019
"This is a landmark verdict. Justice has finally prevailed." "Despite her protest of innocence, and despite the lack of evidence against her, this case was used to rouse angry mobs, justify the assassination of two senior officials and intimidate the Pakistani state into capitulation." "The message must go out that the blasphemy laws will no longer be used to persecute the country's most vulnerable minorities." Omar Waraich, deputy South Asia director, Amnesty International
Asia Bibi
"They've made a mockery of Islam with this verdict, and we will hold them accountable." "Her freedom means all others who want to say anything against Islam know they will be protected by the courts." Saqib Ali, 30, protester "Do not take the state to a point where it has no option but to take action." "They [protesters organized by Tehreek-e-Labaik] are not serving Islam, but trying to increase their vote bank." "They are doing their politics." "You are not aiding Islam by talking about killing judges and by killing
our generals who have sacrificed so much for our country." "I am appealing to our people: Do not get
caught up by the worlds of these people who only want to increase their
vote bank." Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan
A supporter of a radical Islamic group stands guard as protesters block a highway.
Photograph: Muhammad Sajjad/AP
And in doing 'their politics' they have roiled Pakistani society with protests across Punjab province. In Islamabad protesters blocked a main highway connecting the capital to Rawalpindi, burning tires, chanting their rejections of the court decision to free the woman known as Asia Bibi, on death row, in solitary for the past eight years on charges of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed, punishable by death. In Karachi, Tehreek-e-Labbaik members blocked traffic intersections in mob-rule.
The now-50-year-old farm worker and mother of five from Ittan Wali, a farming village, became the centre of Pakistan's long-standing persecution of its Christian minority when she was accused by two co-workers of insulting the Prophet. She did so, they claim, after they refused to drink water out of a communal bowl after she had herself slaked her thirst, then offered the bowl to them. It was she, after all, who had brought along the water to begin with on a hot summer day as they picked berries.
When an argument broke out the women claimed Bibi had spoken abusively against Islam and the Prophet, and she insisted she had not and was being victimized by false accusations brought against her by those deploring her religious devotion. A mob hauled her to a local police station where she was charged with blasphemy and where she remained incarcerated in isolation for the next eight years. Pakistan's supreme court ruled on an appeal against her conviction, setting it aside.
Her plight, in its early years, was one that brought two high-placed officials to her defence; Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab province, campaigned for her release, demanding the country's blasphemy laws be lifted. His police bodyguard became a celebrated figure by shooting the governor to death in Islamabad. This was followed by the minister of minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti the only Christian to hold such a position in the government being shot and killed when he too called for changes to the blasphemy law.
Her release from prison and her presence at an undisclosed location for her safety is said to be temporary; a lawyer representing her stated she will soon leave the country. An absolute necessity to guarantee her security since so many good Muslim citizens of Pakistan are furiously calling for her death. The court's ruling absolving her of all charges, ordered her "released forthwith" issued by a three-member bench of the court. Chief Justice Mian Saqih Nisar is himself now a death target.
Pakistan's religious extremists will go to any means to achieve their end, the wish to destroy the lives of any who are rumoured to have been critical of Islam or the Prophet. For Asia Bibi asylum in France or Spain, both offering to give her haven, is in her future, though with the prevalent numbers of Muslims that have recently established themselves there and past attacks against critics of Islam she might be better off elsewhere than Europe.
Supporters of Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), a hardline religious
political party chant slogans during a protest against the court
decision to overturn the conviction of Christian woman Asia Bibi in
Lahore on October 31, 2018.
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
