A jury has acquitted three G4S guards accused of causing the death of a 46-year-old Angolan father of five by using a banned restraint technique on a British Airways plane.
Several witnesses came forward to say they heard Jimmy Mubenga, who was being forcibly repatriated to Angola following a criminal conviction for assault after spending twenty years in the UK, crying out that he couldn’t breathe as his head was forced down between his legs, despite already being handcuffed from behind and restrained by the plane’s seatbelt. But the jury believed the claims of Terrence Hughes, 53, Colin Kaler, 52 and Stuart Tribelnig, 39, who said they heard no such complaint from the victim and that they never used the so-called ‘carpet karaoke’ technique to subdue him.
Jimmy Mubenga’s widow expressed her “shock and disappointment” as the three guards were cleared of fatally restraining her husband. Adrienne Makenda Kambana sat in Court 16 of the Old Bailey throughout most of the evidence, although at times she appeared to be overcome with emotion.
Later she issued a statement saying: “For the last four years I have fought for justice for Jimmy and our five children. I am shocked and disappointed by the jury’s findings. It is hard for me to understand how the jury reached this decision with all the overwhelming evidence that Jimmy said over and over that he could not breathe.
“I wish to thank those who worked so hard for justice for me and our children. My struggle continues.”
Calling for procedures to be improved to save lives in the future, she added: “I am not going to leave it like this. Jimmy was a good man, a good father and a good husband. I will fight – fight for justice for him.
“Jimmy died because he could not get help on that plane. It was a big shame. They were watching Jimmy die.’
Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, who have been supporting the family, said: “It is difficult to reconcile the verdict with the evidence heard at the trial that over 20 people heard Jimmy Mubenga say ‘I can’t breathe’.
“There needs to be a mechanism for state institutions and the private companies they employ to be held to account when people die. The lack of state accountability over Black deaths in custody is a global issue and one that will not go away until urgently addressed.”
Mark Scott, solicitor for the Mubenga family, added: “Cases involving deaths at the hands of officers of the state need to be treated in the same way as criminal investigations into any other deaths.
“No family should have to wait for over four years for the criminal process into the deaths of their loved ones to come before the court.”
A three-row section of the British Airways Boeing 777 was recreated in court and, in an unprecedented move, jury members were invited to try on the rigid handcuffs used to restrain Mubenga to “experience how he might have felt”.
Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey that Mubenga was “fit and healthy” and cooperative before boarding the extradition flight, but he had become upset after talking on his mobile phone in the toilet cubicle. The court also heard he became aggressive.
The guards were alleged to have responded by handcuffing him behind his back, forcing him into a seat and for 36 minutes pinning him down in a forward-leaning position that affected his ability to breathe.
Dennis said: “Each officer would have known from their training and from common sense that keeping someone in such a position was likely to cause a person harm, yet they did so over a prolonged period and did so ignoring shouts from Mr Mubenga that he was in trouble.
“‘I can’t breathe’ shouts were heard by many a passenger seated further away (…) By the time the guards realised Mr Mubenga was in a critical state, it was too late and he had gone into cardiac arrest”, Dennis said.
Staff at Hughes’ previous security firm used the ‘carpet karaoke’ technique, but the practice of pushing a seated person’s head forward, compressing the diaphragm, to stop them spitting, was later deemed “malpractice”. Hughes told the jury he had seen it work on two occasions but denied he had ever used it himself or picked it up on the job from his “elders”.
Mr Dennis asked if he had resolved to hold Mr Mubenga’s head down to “stop him making a noise” until they got into the air. Hughes replied: “No sir. I did not agree with it when I saw it and I don’t agree with it now.”
When Mr Dennis then said: “We suggest that you and your colleagues were forcing Mr Mubenga forwards, holding him down, controlling him and maintaining that hold for as long as you could and as long as he resisted, you held him down.”, Hughes replied: “He was never forced down with his head forced beneath his knees.”
Tribelnig told the jury that he did not hear Mr Mubenga “say anything about air” and insisted he did not force the deportee’s head down.
An inquest jury last year concluded that Mr Mubenga was unlawfully killed, prompting the Crown Prosecution Service to reconsider bringing charges against the three men – but not against their employer G4S. The jury in the criminal case was not told of the inquest verdict for legal reasons, or that two of the defendants – Hughes and Tribelnig – had “very racially offensive material” on their phones, including offensive images and, in the case of Hughes, more than sixty racist texts.
The case bears a striking resemblance to the highly publicised ‘choke hold’ death in New York of Eric Garner, the African American who was videotaped crying out that he was unable to breathe as he was forced to the ground by police officers. Here again, none of the officers involved was convicted of any wrongdoing, leading to nationwide ‘I Can’t Breathe’ protests that are only now beginning to subside.
