Was apprehended and confessed

A British judge annulled the trial of a young man accused of armed robbery because a police officer inside the courtroom was seen making faces, frowning or shaking his head while the defendant was giving his testimony. The jurors noticed the disapproving facial expressions of Detective Constable Andrew Woodward and notified Judge Graham Knowles of this. The latter immediately declared the trial annulled, discharged the jury and called for a retrial next month. I do not believe that we in any Arab country will reach such a level of justice in a hundred or even a thousand years. In fact, I must confess that I, as a true Arab citizen, find a great deal of exaggeration in British law. Indeed, the police officer did not interfere with the trial’s proceedings at all. Rather, his facial expressions seemed to indicate that he did not approve of what the defendant was saying. As for the jurors, they had no need to examine the police officer’s facial expressions while listening to the defendant being questioned. Nonetheless, the judge annulled the trial, which meant losing all the public funds that had been spent on the trial up until its annulment. Had the defendant been apprehended in any Arab country, he would have been beaten and tortured before even reaching the police station, and would have confessed to what he did and to what he did not do. The judge would have found his confession signed by witnesses before him in court, and the verdict would have been a “given”. Indeed, citizens in our countries are guilty until proven innocent, which rarely happens. Thus people are apprehended on charges of armed robbery, murder or sexual assault, and become referred to as “criminals” or “sexual monsters” before the indictment is even issued, not to mention the fact that defendants are convicted on the basis of having confessed after being tortured. I started working in journalism when I was still a student, and I was lucky enough to have received training in London under the supervision of Tom Little, author of the book “Nasser: Pioneer of Arab Nationalism” and one of the most famous British journalists during his lifetime. What I learned was that the defendant remains Mister X, the alleged murderer, until a guilty verdict is issued and he becomes “the murderer” and is stripped of the title of “Mister”. And if the convicted defendant were to appeal the verdict, he would restore his titles of “Mister” and “alleged murderer” until a final verdict was issued, declaring him innocent or guilty. In the West, immediately describing the person arrested as a criminal would mean preventing them from being tried in the city where the media or the public condemned them, and perhaps moving the trial to another city where public opinion is not biased against the defendant. When will we reach this in our countries? I say “when hell freezes over”. I perhaps would not have written about the case of the young man accused of armed robbery had it not coincided with daily news for weeks about convicted criminal Ian Brady, who murdered five youngsters in the 1950s with the help of his accomplice Myra Hindley (who died in 2002), and refused to reveal where he had buried one of his victims, Keith Bennett, who was twelve years old when he was killed. Winnie Johnson, the murdered Keith’s mother, spent around 50 years of her life looking for her son’s body in order to give him a decent burial alongside his family. She passed away last Saturday, having stated in her will that a spot near her grave be left for her son to be buried in when his body is found. I presume she died of frustration and grief, as news circulated of the existence of a letter written by the murderer, explaining where he had buried his victim, and stating that it should not be opened before his death. It was later said that Brady’s legal advocate had returned the letter to him. There are many details involved and they are not important to the main idea. Thus, a policeman frowns and a trial is annulled; a serial killer moves from murdering children to torturing their parents, and thus lives out his days in a prison similar to a psychiatric hospital, under medical supervision. Had such a criminal been caught in one of our countries, he would have confessed to the locations where he buried each one of his child victims, and would have been put to death afterwards as he deserves, and that would have been it. In their countries, however, criminals have rights, and even illegal immigrants who commit crimes are kept in the country, because expelling them would mean violating their human rights. In our countries, even innocent people do not have rights, and if they are suspected, will be tortured on their way to the police station as well as at the station itself. Sometimes, a confession will be obtained from them while they are innocent, but simply cannot endure torture. In their countries, he was apprehended under the umbrella and the protection of the law. In our countries, he “was apprehended and confessed”. How many times have we read these two words one after the other on the local news page of the newspapers of every Arab country? Had Ian Brady been apprehended in Syria, for example, after having killed five children, he would have confessed to killing ten children, or any number the police wished. Perhaps he would have died under torture, and the police would have assured us that he died of a heart attack. Will we ever live under the rule of law? Every Arab can dream, but they will wake up in the morning to realize that their rosy dreams have been dispelled by the nightmares of their waking hours. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.