UN speaker calls for inquiry into undercover police

A JUDGE-led public inquiry should be held into the “shocking” case of Mark Kennedy and other related allegations about undercover police officers, a ­senior United Nations figure has said.

Maina Kiai said revelations about the activities of Kennedy, an undercover officer who was exposed in 2011 as a police source within environmental movements, as well as the cases of other undercover officers, were as damaging as the phone-hacking scandal which prompted the Leveson inquiry.

The UN special rapporteur said he was “deeply concerned” about the use within the UK of embedded undercover police officers in non-violent groups which exercise their democratic rights to protest and take peaceful direct action.

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“The case of Mark Kennedy and other undercover officers is shocking as the groups in question were not engaged in criminal activities,” he told a news conference in central London.

“The duration of this infiltration, and the resultant trauma and suspicion it has caused, are unacceptable in a democracy.

“It is a clear violation of basic rights protected under the Human Rights Act.”

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