Thursday, April 17, 2008

Lionheart has been arrested

Last month he attended Greyfriars police station in Bedford, was arrested then bailed and told to return in May to either be released or charged.

His blog includes his opinions on the heroin trade, Islamic fundamentalism and alleged police corruption
.

I have translated the whole article into Spanish here.

3 comments:

Damien said...

Sad that there wasn't more opposition to these stupid hate speech laws when they were first proposed.

Unknown said...

Yes, very sad...

Pastorius said...

Gates of Vienna has a personal testimony on their experience with Lionheart, attemtpting to help him get asylum here in the U.S.

It seems that, after all the help others gave him, Lionheart got homesick and went back to be arrested.

Thing is, Lionheart, ultimately, did not want to go through what it would take to really make a real point out of his persecution in Britain. And, really, who could blame him. Not everyone wants to burn themselves on the altar of history.

One has to wonder, if the arrest he was facing was so bad, then why did he go back? Was it more frightening to live in the USA? Or, was he simply not Lionhearted enough to stay away from home.

One thing that we don't really have a grasp of here in the USA is that in the UK to be arrested is a prerequisite to the police questioning you, or so I'm told.

As I understand it, the process goes,

1) you are arrested (detained, or taken into custody for questioning. Apparently, this does not mean you are put in jail.)

2) you are questioned, at which point you are informed of the charges against you.

3) You are released from custody

4) a date for trial is set.


So, basically, as I understand it, Lionheart was objecting to being formally questioned.

Unless he was up for some sort of violent crime, as I understand it, he would not have been placed in jail.

My point is, while I don't think Lionheart is a bad guy, I do think he has taken advantage of American ignorance of British law to make a bigger deal out of this whole thing than it is.

But, perhaps, I don't understand British law correctly.