From Iceland — Court Rules Against Undercover Cop

Court Rules Against Undercover Cop

Published July 20, 2011

Three senior judges in Britain have ruled that Mark Kennedy – an undercover cop who pretended to be an eco-protester named Mark Stone – acted unlawfully and with the intent of inciting others to break the law.
As Grapevine reported, British policeman Mark Kennedy participated in the Kárahnjúkar protests, and told the Guardian that he had taken part in major protest operations, rising up the activist ranks, and had even seduced protesters to extract information from them. Saving Iceland, an environmentalist group who spearheaded the protests against the Kárahnjúkar dam project, denied that Kennedy was particularly active or important in Iceland.
Be that as it may, Saving Iceland and others have called for criminal charges to be pressed against Kennedy. Today, a justice of a sort was achieved in the matter.
The Guardian reports that a court of appeals threw out convictions made against 20 climate change activists because of Kennedy’s involvement with the group.

On Wednesday, giving their reasons for overturning the convictions, the judges made stinging criticisms about Kennedy’s undercover operation, which they said was part of long-term police infiltration of extreme leftwing groups.
The judges said Kennedy “was involved in activities which went much further than the authorisation he was given, and appeared to show him as an enthusiastic supporter of the proposed occupation of the power station and, arguably, an agent provocateur”.

This ruling, while freeing the accused activists from convictions, may also lead to criminal charges being pressed against Kennedy, or would at least be damning support for a case against him. At the time of this writing, Kennedy is still a free man in the UK.

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