Ricin, elections and ID cards

The conviction of Kamel Bourgess, an Algerian immigrant, of cop-killing and turrsm has sent the media into a frenzy, and just in time for the Election. Ricin! Al Qaeda! Muslim brown people! Plot to bomb Jewish centre! Sounds pretty scary, right? Right! As R4 Today covered this morning, it's a pressing argument for ID cards, right? Right!

Except....

Bourgess was the only one convicted of any charge among his 9 co-conspirators, no ricin was found, poison recipes were freely available through the internet and the evidence consisted of a handful of castor beans, a coffee grinder and a kitchen-sink recipe copied from the internet. His conviction was for 'conspiracy to commit a public nuisance'.

These articles by Duncan Campbell at the Guardian and George Smith (posted here at Globalecho.org) have detailed some of the doubts over the validity of the ricin plot, the Al Qaeda cell and the terrorist recipes found in Bourgess' possession. The NYTimes is also less than convinced by the turrsm spin. Bourgess does sound a little scary, and stabbed to death a special police officer who raided his flat, but any ideas he had for poisoning were frankly amateur.

So don't believe everything you hear on TV, or read in the papers. The Independent's swallowed the gumment propaganda hook, line and sinker and regurgitated this for readers as if straight from Blunkett's, errr.. Clarke's mouth.

For the record, I have a castor oil plant, a coffee grinder and also some kalonji black onion seeds in my house (these were removed as evidence in the Wood Green case). Arrest me.



Addendum:

A second article from George Smith at globalsecurity.org on the feeble 'chemical and biological weapons' that Bourgass might've attempted. Apple pips and cherry stones for cyanide, ricin at one tenth strength, Botulinum (Sun cliche- MOST TOXIC SUBSTANCE KNOWN TO MAN) from home-brewed meat'n'faeces. This is what 10 year old kids try to cook up. Meanwhile, over in Iraq some proper WMDs- DU (see Mr Ire here), cluster bombs, white phosphorus- have been freely used on civilian populations.