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| NEWS > 12 April 2007 |
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SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Waterbo
In his first-ever media interview, Nigerian immigrant David Nwankwo stands by his claim that he was tortured by police. An outrageous smear? Perhaps. But it's part of wider allegations of corruption, theft and brutality that dog the Met.
A nondescript terrace house in North London and a police drugs raid is in full swing.
On a bedroom floor, David Nwankwo is sitting, semi-naked, with his hands handcuffed behind his back as a plain- clothes officer yells: ‘Tell the truth.’
The 24-year-old Nigerian-born immigrant is repeatedly kicked and slapped, on one occasion even being struck a... Read more
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1010 Wins - New York,NY,USA
12 April 2007
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Appeals Court Keeps Crooked NY
The state parole board acted properly when it refused to free a former New York Police Department officer who was a key witness at corruption hearings in the 1970s and has been in prison since 1974, an appeals court ruled Thursday.
The 5-0 decision by the state Supreme Court's Appellate Division reversed a lower court ruling that directed the board to parole the aging and ailing William R. Phillips, who has been imprisoned 32 years.
Phillips, a star witness at the Knapp Commission hearings on police corruption, was convicted in 1974 on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder for fatally shooting a pimp and a prostitute and wounding a witness while trying to collect protection money. He was sentenced to 25 years to life.
Phillips, a police officer from 1957 to 1974, was arrested after he appeared on television while giving Knapp Commission testimony. He was identified as the person wanted for the two killings and for trying to kill a third person.
Phillips, who will be 77 in May, has lost an eye to cancer, has had surgery twice for prostate cancer and has had a stroke, his lawyer Daniel M. Perez said.
In October 2006, Justice Marcy Friedman annulled the board's September 2005 rejection of Phillips' fourth parole request. She said the board improperly based its decision on the seriousness of the crimes alone.
Phillips expressed deep remorse for his crimes, the judge said, and he presented uncontradicted evidence of his unblemished record during his three decades in maximum-security institutions.
She said the parole board "affirmatively recognized at the September 2005 hearing that petitioner can do no more to rehabilitate himself and is not a threat to society.''
The judge said the board's decision to deny Phillips' parole petition "was so irrational as to border on impropriety and should be annulled.''
The Appellate Division disagreed.
"We conclude that the challenged determination was rationally based upon appropriate considerations following a weighing of all applicable statutory standards and factors,'' the appeals judges wrote.
The judges, suggesting that Phillips had not shown remorse or accepted responsibility for his crimes, said that at his last parole hearing he spoke so as "to avoid direct acknowledgment that he precipitated the incident by his conduct in attempting to extort payment from his victim.''
"In our view,'' the judges wrote, "notwithstanding the board's recognition that he has been an exemplary inmate who no longer poses a threat to society, other facts, properly considered as elements of the factors listed in the statute, support the board's denial of parole.''
Perez, Phillips' lawyer, said, "We couldn't disagree with the decision more strongly.''
He said he will ask permission to appeal to the state's highest tribunal, the Court of Appeals in Albany.
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