10 November 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Arsema Dawit murder: IPCC finds Met police failings over teenager killed by ex

originally published by: The Guardian
published: 19th October 2010

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has identified “collective and organisational failings” in the Metropolitan police’s treatment of a teenager who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend after telling them she feared for her life.

Arsema Dawit, 15, was stabbed to death close to her home near Waterloo station by Thomas Nugusse on 2 June 2008. The couple met at church and dated, but after Dawit ended the relationship Nugusse became obsessed and threatened to kill her.

Nugusse, who was 22 at the time, confessed to Dawit’s murder in a 999 call. After his arrest, he twice tried to kill himself, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to enter a plea. He was convicted in May last year.

10 November 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

‘Immunity’ for officers in Azelle Rodney shooting

originally published by: BBC News
published: 4th November 2010

Scotland Yard officers involved in the shooting of a man in north London may get immunity from prosecution at a public inquiry into the killing. Azelle Rodney, 24, of Hounslow, was in a car when an officer opened fire in Edgware in April 2005. Sir Christopher Holland, a retired High Court judge, agreed to ask the Attorney General to protect the officers as it was needed to get their full accounts.

Mr Rodney’s mother said it could set a precedent for other such cases. Susan Alexander said the assurance of a “get out of jail free card” could set a precedent.

At the Royal Courts of Justice Sir Christopher Holland said if the police marksmen were granted immunity from prosecution those involved, including the officer who opened fire, would give full accounts of their actions.

4 November 201016 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Texas sets man free from death row

Source: Houston Chronicle
published: 28th October 2010

After 18 years of incarceration and countless protestations of innocence, Anthony Graves finally got a nod of approval from the one person who mattered Wednesday and at last returned home — free from charges that he participated in the butchery of a family in Somerville he did not know and free of the possibility that he would have to answer for them with his life.

The district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, Bill Parham, gave Graves his release. The prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss charges that had sent Graves to Texas’ death row for most of his adult life.

Graves returned to his mother’s home in Brenham no longer the “cold-blooded killer,” so characterized by the prosecutor who first tried him, but as another exonerated inmate who even in the joy of redemption will face the daunting prospect of reassembling the pieces of a shattered life.