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Home | Friday 11th December 2009 | Issue 703
Letters of support to the guy inside for two years for trying to set fire to the blinds in RBS during the G20 demos (see SchNEWS 702):
Mindaugus Lenartavicius XT6221,
HMP Wandsworth,
Heathfield Road,
London,
SW18 3HS
The following comments have been left on this story by other SchNEWS readers...
Added on 16th December 2009 at 16:53 by Anonymous
sorry, EDIT: ..They were all based on a closed debate in the courtroom between a judge who was new to the case, a prosecutor who presented an excerpt of the CCTV footage and a barrister who did fuck-all for his defence..
Added on 16th December 2009 at 16:23 by Anonymous
A lot of what's been said in the press about his sentencing were lies:
1) He did NOT come here from Lithuania for the protest and tried flying straight black the day after - he was living here in a squat in London for more than a year and at the time of booking the flight to Lithuania he wasn't yet even aware of the April Fools Day being organised;
2) The 'cloud of smoke' rising from the 'blinds caught on fire' shown on CCTV footage was actually one of the smoke bombs thrown into the building. The blinds were inflammable.
3) All that sorry ass shit and regrets was made up by the defending barrister. In fact it was his whole defence strategy.
The fact that there were NO journalists in court, no reporters, nothing, proves that any articles about the sentencing you may come across are from the same source (Southwark Crown Court, presumably?). They were all based on a closed debate in the courtroom between a judge.
Stuff not mentioned in the press:
* He was held in detention for 7 months and denied bail only because of being a non-UK citizen and a squatter with no income (he was neither working nor on benefit). Although the judge did not issue a deportation (he said he would have done that if the prosecutor hadn't forgotten to bring his passport), Mindaugas is still facing one upon his release.
* The building in question is made out of marble and its blids were inflammable. The damage caused by his ligther has not been evalutated by RBS but it'd be fair to say it's roughly a fiver.
* "Reckless" arson was considered but later dropped. He got sentenced to 2 years for simple arson.
* After announcing his final decision, the judge said: "Let this be an example to further cases involving protesters". He inquired the prosecutors if there were more people awaiting trial and those trials are held in the same court.
Please spread this info around!
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