Detectives have launched a murder inquiry after a body was found in a suitcase at a north London sports ground, Scotland Yard said Monday. …read more
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Body found in suitcase in north London
Tag Archives: Scotland Yard
Body of actor Paul Bhattacharjee found
LONDON, July 17 (UPI) — The body of British actor Paul Bhattacharjee, who had been missing for more than a week, has been found, Scotland Yard said Wednesday. …read more
Protesters who scaled London's Shard released on bail
Six female Greenpeace activists who scaled the Shard skyscraper in London, western Europe’s tallest building, in a protest over Arctic oil drilling, have been released on bail, police said Friday.
The protesters evaded security guards just before dawn on Thursday to begin the unauthorised bid to climb the 72-storey glass-fronted building, which towers 301 metres (1,017 feet) over the British capital.
They were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass.
The group reached the top of the landmark following 15 hours of climbing. Two of the campaigners unfurled a 32-foot (10-metre) square blue flag with ”Save the Arctic” written in white across it.
The protesters said it was intended to put Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell and other oil companies in the spotlight.
“The six women arrested Thursday on suspicion of aggravated trespass after climbing the Shard have been bailed.
“They are due back on bail on August 15,” Scotland Yard police headquarters said in a statement.
Greenpeace spokeswoman Leila Deen — best known for throwing green custard in the face of then-business secretary Peter Mandelson in 2009 — said the operation was “relatively straightforward”.
“This is one of our biggest actions ever, and it really is a huge ascent to do,” she said.
“Hopefully this will really bring home to Shell that we will not be ignored, they need to listen to the three million people that are calling on them to stop drilling the Arctic and protect our planet.”
In a statement Shell said oil and gas production from the Arctic “was not new”.
“The Arctic region currently produces about 10 percent of the world’s oil and 25 percent of its gas,” it said.
“If responsibly developed, Arctic energy resources can help offset supply constraints and maintain energy security for consumers throughout the world.
“Shell has been operating in the Arctic and sub-Arctic since the early 20th century, giving us the technical experience and know-how to explore for and produce oil and gas responsibly.”
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Former BBC driver charged with sex offenses
British police say they have charged a former BBC driver with sexual offenses following an investigation triggered by sex crime allegations against late entertainer Jimmy Savile.
Scotland Yard said Wednesday that 66-year-old David Smith is accused of five offenses including indecent assault and sex with a boy under 16 years old. The alleged offenses took place in the 1980s.
Smith is the first person to be charged under Operation Yewtree, a national police investigation launched after revelations that Savile targeted hundreds of young victims over five decades. The entertainer died in 2011 at age 84.
The BBC says it employed Smith, but it is not clear whether he knew Savile or whether the alleged offenses were related to his work for the broadcaster.
Suspect in poisoning of Russian spy withdraws from British inquest into murder
The main suspect in the grisly poisoning of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London withdrew on Tuesday from the British inquest into the murder, saying that political pressure and state secrecy were preventing him from clearing his name.
Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer turned fierce Kremlin critic, died in 2006 after drinking tea poisoned with the radioactive isotope polonium-210 at a London hotel. His family says he was working for Britain’s intelligence services, and believes the Russian state was behind his death.
Britain has named Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and Russian lawmaker, and businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who met Litvinenko hours before he fell ill, as the main suspects. Both deny their involvement and have refused to attend the inquest, though they have sent legal representatives. Russia has turned down British requests to extradite the two men.
In Britain, inquests are held to determine the facts whenever someone dies violently, unexpectedly or in disputed circumstances, though they do not apportion blame. But in Litvinenko’s case every detail of the inquiry is being scrutinized for clues to the alleged involvement of Russia‘s secret services.
Parts of the inquest have been held in secret after the British government cited security reasons, over the objections of Litvinenko’s family and media. Russia‘s top investigative agency has conducted its own investigation of the crime and said that Lugovoi, who claims he was also exposed to the polonium, was also a victim.
Lugovoi claimed the polonium trail in fact led from London to Moscow and scoffed at allegations in the British media that the Russian state ordered Litvinenko’s death.
“Litvinenko’s not Trotsky – he doesn’t have enough stature for secret services to run around the whole world after him with an icepick in their hand,” he added, referring to the prominent rival of Stalin assassinated in Mexico in 1941.
Brandishing what he said was a classified British police report into Litvinenko’s death, Lugovoi said that the accusations against him were “nonsense” and that Scotland Yard was ignoring alternative theories of the crime in order to smear the Kremlin.
Litvinenko’s alleged work for British intelligence, collaboration with Spanish authorities investigating the Russian mafia and private intelligence work was a “lifestyle that earned him all sorts of open and covert enemies,” Lugovoi said.
Logovoi alleged that the British inquest has been influenced by Boris Berezovsky, a flamboyant and outspoken Russian oligarch in London exile who had close ties to Litvinenko. Lugovoi says Berezovsky was involved in the poisoning, a charge that Berezosvky has denied.
UK police probe Lib Dem sex harassment claims
British police say they are investigating allegations that a former senior member of the Liberal Democrats party sexually harassed a number of women.
Scotland Yard said Monday it is probing whether criminal activity had taken place following claims that Chris Rennard, a former chief executive of the left-leaning Lib Dems, molested four women in incidents that dated back to 2003.
Rennard denies the claims, while party leader Nick Clegg, Britain’s deputy prime minister, faces questions about whether he was involved in a cover-up.
Clegg said Sunday that he had been aware of concerns about Rennard’s behavior before, but he had not heard of the specific allegations until they were broadcast by a television program last week.
List of most spectacular diamond heists
Thieves have outwitted armed guards, alarm systems and even airport security over the years, making off with diamonds and other jewelry worth millions. In Brussels, thieves cut through an airport fence, drove to a Swiss-bound plane and snatched an estimated $50 million in diamonds late Monday.
Here are some other spectacular heists in recent memory:
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2005: Thieves threaten the guards and hijack an armored car from Dutch carrier KLM‘s cargo ramp at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, making off with millions in diamonds and jewelry. Subsequent media reports put the value of the loot at up to $100 million. “It was a secured area of the airport, so it’s a big question how those people could get there,” an airline spokesman said at the time.
2003: Robbers tape over security cameras, disable the alarm system and break into the high-security underground vaults of the Diamond Center in Antwerp, the world capital of diamond-cutting, getting away with an estimated $100 million in goods. After prying open 123 of the 160 vaults, the thieves stood ankle-deep in a pile of diamonds, gold, jewelry, stocks, bonds, cash and lockboxes, police said. The bounty was so abundant they had to leave a lot behind.
2008: While Christmas shoppers stroll outside the posh Harry Winston jewelry shop near Paris‘ famed Champs-Elysees, armed thieves — some dressed as women and wearing wigs — enter the store and steal gems and jeweled watches worth up to $85 million, according to French police.
2009: Two elegantly dressed men rob the Graff Diamond Store in London‘s posh Mayfair district and carry away necklaces, watches, rings and bracelets worth more than >40 million ($62 million at today’s exchange rate), according to Scotland Yard.
1994: Machine-gun-toting thieves steal $45 million in gems from the Carlton Hotel in Cannes on the French Riviera.
2004: Twelve pieces of jewelry worth about $31.5 million, including the 125-carat “Comtesse de Vendome” diamond necklace, are stolen from a store in Tokyo’s Ginza district.
2007: 120,000 karats in diamonds, worth $28 million, are stolen from safe-deposit boxes in an ABN Amro bank in Antwerp, Belgium, according to police.
2008: Masked thieves drill a tunnel into jeweler Damiani’s showroom in Milan, Italy, making off …read more
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McCann Lookalike Not Maddy
By Matt Cantor 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Police confirm NZealand girl not Madeleine McCann
Police say DNA tests have confirmed a New Zealand girl is not missing British youngster Madeleine McCann.
Members of the public have twice mistakenly identified the New Zealand girl as Madeleine. The first sighting was last March and the second on New Year’s Eve.
Madeleine was 3 years old when she vanished nearly six years ago during a family vacation to Portugal. Her disappearance drew attention as well as false sightings around the globe. Portuguese police closed the case in 2008 after failing to find out what happened to her.
New Zealand police said in a statement Wednesday they sent DNA samples to Scotland Yard at the request of British police still investigating Madeleine’s disappearance. New Zealand police say the unnamed girl’s family has requested privacy.
Fox attacks 4-week-old baby boy at London home
British police are investigating a fox attack on a 4-week-old baby in his home in London.
Scotland Yard said the boy was admitted to a hospital Wednesday after the fox injured his hand. British media including the BBC and the Press Association reported Saturday that the fox bit one of the baby’s fingers, and that the boy was recovering after surgery.
It was not clear how the fox entered the home.
Mayor Boris Johnson is calling for more to be done to tackle what he called the “growing problem of urban foxes.” Some have called for a cull of the animals, which are a common sight at night in quieter areas of the capital.
New Zealand authorities conduct DNA test on Madeleine McCann look-alike
Authorities in New Zealand are testing DNA from a child said to closely resemble missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who disappeared six years ago from a resort in Portugal, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The DNA sample is being obtained at the request of Scotland Yard, according to the newspaper. The McCann look-alike is reportedly said to have a coloboma of the iris — the same rare eye defect that McCann has, and is approximately nine years old, like Madeleine.
McCann disappeared in May 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday, while vacationing with her parents and young siblings in Praia da Luz, Portugal. Her disappearance sparked a media frenzy and international manhunt, leading to several false sightings in Portugal and elsewhere. British detectives have traveled to Portugal many times during the course of the investigation, and have said the girl may still be alive.
The request for the DNA sample came after a store clerk in Queenstown contacted authorities. New Zealand police were reportedly alerted to the same look-alike at least five times over the past five years and are “absolutely satisfied” the child is not McCann.
The girl disappeared from an unlocked ground-floor bedroom at the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz, while he parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were dining at a restaurant about 130 yards away. The McCanns were at one point named as suspects by Portuguese authorities, but were later cleared.
The results of the DNA test are not expected for several weeks.
DNA Taken From Madeleine McCann Lookalike
By Kate Seamons 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
Police Taser man outside Buckingham Palace
British police say they have arrested and used a stun gun on a man armed with two knives outside Buckingham Palace.
Scotland Yard said the man, thought to be in his 50s, acted aggressively when challenged by police outside the gates of the heavily touristed landmark on Sunday. Officers used a Taser gun on him and took him to a London police station.
The man was not named and police did not provide details of his identity.
Parts of the area outside the palace gates, usually crowded with tourists, were cordoned off. No injuries were reported.
Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip were at their country retreat, Sandringham Estate, on Sunday. The palace declined to comment on the incident.
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Italy steel exec arrested in UK over ILVA plant
An Italian steel executive turned himself into British authorities on Tuesday after being placed under investigation in Italy over environmental and health problems at Europe‘s largest steel mill — a case that has become a major headache for the government given the 20,000 jobs at risk if the plant closes.
Fabio Riva, 58, was arrested on a European arrest warrant alleging, among other things, failing to take precautions against work accidents, corruption of judicial acts, poisoning water or food and making false declarations, Scotland Yard said in a statement. He was released on bail and ordered to appear again March 5.
His lawyers said they would fight extradition to Italy, according to a statement released by Riva’s advisers.
Riva is one of more than a half-dozen company officials under investigation for problems at the Ilva steel plant in the southern city of Taranto. The plant is at the center of a stalemate between prosecutors who, citing studies pointing to increased incidents of cancer in the area, have taken moves to close Ilva and the government which wants to keep the plant operating — albeit with investments and environmental improvements — given its economic importance in recession-plagued Italy.
The plant itself employs some 12,000 people and accounts for 75 percent of the economic production in Taranto province, located in one of Italy‘s poorest regions. But it is also an integral part of a steel supply chain that employs some 20,000.
Parliament last month approved a “Save Ilva” law which allowed for the plant to continue operating, with a host of environmental improvements and under strict monitoring. But prosecutors challenged the constitutionality of the law, charging among other things that parliament had usurped judicial powers in passing it.
Just last week, Italian Premier Mario Monti convened a summit of government and company officials, union leaders and business groups who jointly demanded “with absolute respect for magistrates ” that the provisions of the law be immediately implemented while the Constitutional Court reviews the case.
Prosecutors last year seized Ilva’s steel products bound for the market and police arrested more than a half-dozen people, including Riva’s father, the founder of the company Riva Group which purchased Ilva from the government in 1995. The younger Riva was in Britain at the time the arrest warrant was issued and, during weeks of contact with British authorities, turned himself into Scotland Yard on Tuesday, his advisers said.
Also Tuesday, Ilva’s president, Bruno Ferranto, asked the court in Taranto to release the sequestered steel products so they could be sold, saying the “survival” of the company and its ability to pay the salaries of its workers were at stake.
Ilva has disputed court-ordered studies into the environmental and health impact of the steel plant, saying its emissions meet European environmental standards, that the presence of dioxins in the air is comparable to other cities and regardless can’t be directly linked to Ilva.
In a line-by-line response to the court-ordered investigation, Ilva said any long-term health problems of Taranto residents are the responsibility of the plant’s operators before the government privatized it.
Italy‘s environment minister is due to meet with company officials on Wednesday in Taranto.
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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
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J.S.G. Boggs' Counterfeit Money Is Worth More Than The Real Thing. Are You Buying It? [Book Excerpt #2]
By Jonathon Keats, Contributor When the Bank of England learned that the artist J.S.G. Boggs was making money, the authorities were not pleased. On October 31, 1986, three inspectors from Scotland Yard raided an exhibition of his currency at the Young Unknowns Gallery in London, and placed him under arrest. Though his banknotes were drawn by hand, bearing his own signature as chief cashier, the British government pressed charges under Section 18 of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act, threatening to end his career with a forty-year prison sentence.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
UK police open historic child abuse probe
British police have launched an official probe into claims that senior politicians had links to a pedophile gang during the 1980s.
Scotland Yard says the investigation is looking into historic child abuse allegations at a London guest house.
Thursday’s announcement came after opposition Labour Party lawmaker Tom Watson claimed last year that there was evidence that a member of a pedophile ring boasted about his connections with a “senior aide to a former prime minister.”
Watson suggested that at the time there was a “pedophile network linked to Parliament” and Downing Street. He urged police to reopen evidence files to reexamine and follow up the leads.
Police said that initial findings have turned up enough to begin a criminal investigation.
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Nepali charged with torture appears in UK court
A British court on Saturday denied bail to a colonel in the Nepalese army facing charges of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation’s civil war.
Kumar Lama, 46, was arrested Thursday at a residential address in the English town of St. Leonards-on-Sea, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of London. He was later charged with intentionally “inflicting severe pain or suffering” on two individuals as a public official — or person acting in official capacity.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police said the charges relate to one incident that allegedly occurred between April 15 and May 1, 2005, and another that allegedly occurred between April 15 and Oct. 31, 2005 at the Gorusinghe Army Barracks in Nepal. Scotland Yard has said that the arrest did not take place at the request of Nepalese authorities.
British authorities claim “universal jurisdiction” over serious offenses such as war crimes, torture, and hostage-taking, meaning such crimes can be prosecuted in Britain regardless of where they occurred.
Lama spoke only to confirm his identity when he appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Saturday. Two diplomats from the Nepalese embassy were in court for the short hearing, according to Britain’s Press Association news agency.
The court heard that Lama has served in the Nepalese Army since 1984 and was in charge of the barracks at the time of the alleged offenses. The colonel is currently serving as a U.N. peacekeeper in South Sudan, having previously served in Sierra Leone and Lebanon, and he was due to return to Africa on Saturday after spending Christmas in England.
The case has touched off a diplomatic spat, with the Nepalese government summoning the U.K. ambassador in Kathmandu to protest. Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed on Friday that Nepal‘s government summoned the U.K. ambassador in Kathmandu because it was upset over the arrest, but declined to comment further.
Thousands of people died and thousands were injured or tortured during Nepal‘s civil war, a decade-long conflict that ended in 2006.
Judge Quentin Purdy remanded Lama in custody pending a Jan. 24 court date.
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Nepali man arrested in UK over torture allegations
British police say that they have arrested a Nepali man on suspicion of torture allegedly committed during the Himalayan nation’s bloody civil war.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police said Thursday they had arrested the 46-year-old at a residential address in the English town of St. Leonards-on-Sea, about 70 miles (115 kilometers) southeast of London.
Scotland Yard said the arrest did not take place at the request of Nepali authorities.
The details of the alleged offense have not been made clear, but British authorities claim “universal jurisdiction” over serious offenses such as war crimes, torture, and hostage taking.
That means such crimes can be prosecuted in Britain regardless of where they occurred.
Thousands died and thousands more were injured or tortured during Nepal‘s civil war, a decade-long conflict which ended in 2006.
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UK 'plebgate' scandal becomes police crisis
It started three months ago with an angry exchange over a bicycle in front of the British prime minister’s official residence. Now, the controversy over what a senior politician did or didn’t say to officers guarding Downing Street has grown into a full-blown crisis, raising new questions about police ethics.
Writing in The Sunday Times, Andrew Mitchell said he was the victim of a conspiracy, saying that a report which quoted him as describing police as “plebs” — an insulting term for a working-class person — had been faked.
Mitchell resigned as the Conservatives’ chief whip in October as the scandal rumbled on, but the arrest of two police officers allegedly involved in lying about the incident has revived his political fortunes — and raised new questions for Scotland Yard.
Source: Fox World News
Australian DJs in Hoax May Face Criminal Charges
By John Johnson
Source: Newser – Home