170
Man admits torching Ukraine-linked business in UK, taking pay from foreign intelligence
(www.reuters.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Ok. I Hope there were industrial secrets or some weird espionage thing going on because the premise of foreign intelligence paying a guy to burn down a business sounds like peak Zapp Brannigan.
Looking forward to "yes I admit drinking one too many and getting naked at the Christmas party; Russia paid me to do it!"
I don't know how it works in the UK, but in some "enlightened" countries the police and courts can literally use your silence against you if you're accused of a crime. You know, the old "only the guilty have anything to hide" canard. Only in the US is clamming up in all circumstances the best option.
I'm not this dude's lawyer, either, but he is probably gearing up for some kind of cooperation-with-the-state thing in the hopes of weaseling out of as much of it as possible by blaming it on the Russians.
When you get arrested in England, you do have a right to remain silent, but it might be used against you. The police will typically say:
Yeah, this is a place the US is much further above others. You don't have to answer police questions and not answering them cannot be used against you. It's kinda important, because the police are real good at basically tricking you into admitting guilt. Not having to answer questions is an extremely powerful tool that many fail to utilize.
I've never really thought of it as a bad thing. You can still say nothing, or "I want to speak with a lawyer before I answer any questions".
I've always considered it to be more about a line of questioning at trial. If you've invented an alibi, the prosecution can ask you "why are you only coming up with this excuse now but you didn't at the time?". You might then have a good reason for this, such as "I didn't think it was a good idea to answer questions without first consulting a lawyer".
The American model of having immunity if you just stay quiet is a bit odd in comparison.
I always assumed that it means that if you talk to them and don’t mention the thing that you might rely on later then it could harm your defence but if you just say that you need to speak to a lawyer and say nothing else then that can’t harm your defence.
I’m not a lawyer though.