Panorama, Copeland, and Myatt, In Context


Since excerpts featuring David Myatt from the 2000 CE Panorama TV program about Copeland are flying around in cyberspace again, and being commented upon, it is perhaps germane to give some details about this program and David Myatt's part in it, thus giving the context to the statements made by Myatt.

One of these excerpts from the program is currently (October 2009 CE) at:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ikn0_the-nail-bomber-4_people


A complete transcript of the program is available at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama/transcripts/transcript_30_06_00.txt


Background

The program itself was produced by Nick Lowles, who for many years has worked for the notorious pro-Zionist Searchlight organization, and who is now editor of the Searchlight magazine. Searchlight itself has long been rumored to be an MI5 - a British government - asset, specializing in not only spreading rumors and dis-information about those the government deems "right-wing extremists", but also in obtaining, by dubious means, confidential information and documents about its opponents, all of whom just happen to be anti-Zionist. These dubious means of obtaining information about anti-Zionist "extremists" include burglary of people's homes and places of work, covert surveillance (often using electronic listening and video devices) and obtaining personal information about people from government and Police databases, usually by bribing people with access to such information, or using contacts in the "intelligence community" and in government.

Thus the program itself was hardly an unbiased documentary, given the opinions and past of its producer, and given the inordinate amount of time given to the opinions of Gerry Gable, another notorious Searchlight operative and another long term MI5 asset.

The program also clearly had an agenda, clearly stated by Gable at the end of the program: Who - other than Copeland - is responsible for all of this? Responsible for the killings, the terror?

The answer that the program gives is that David Myatt was and is responsible. This theme was picked up by many newspapers after the program's transmission, with one newspaper printing a photograph of Myatt on its front-page with the headline:  "This is the man who shaped mind of a bomber; Cycling the lanes around Malvern, the mentor who drove David Copeland to kill..." and with the story beginning:

" Riding a bicycle around his Worcestershire home town sporting a wizard-like beard and quirky dress-sense, the former monk could easily pass as a country eccentric or off-beat intellectual.

But behind David Myatt's studious exterior lies a more sinister character that has been at the forefront of extreme right-wing ideology in Britain since the mid-1960s. Myatt... was the brains behind the country's most openly neo-nazi organization....."


Thus, it seems that it was the intention of Gable and his fellow Zionists such as Lowles and Michael Whine (of the Board of Deputies of British Jews) - and with the help of the Panorama program about Copeland - to "point the finger" at Myatt and have the Police send Myatt to jail for a very long time.



Myatt's Part in Context


For several days before being accosted by the Panorama TV crew (which included "minders", or bodyguards, given Myatt's reputation for violence) Myatt was followed around - to and from his then place of work (a farm) - by a large red van which covertly filmed and photographed him, his place of work, and his home, which home in a small English village he shared with his wife and family.

After several days of this covert surveillance, Myatt was accosted by the TV crew early one rainy and Winter morning while on his way to work. As is evident from the program, Myatt – well spoken, with a soft, educated accent – was polite, and restrained. As given in the official transcript:

McLAGAN
Mr Myatt, we're from the BBC.  We're from Panorama.  We wanted to ask you some 
questions about the NSM and David Copeland, the London nailbomber.

DAVID MYATT
I have no comment to make.

McLAGAN
You called for the creation of racial tension and that's exactly what Copeland did.  You 
inspired Copeland indirectly to do what he did.

MYATT
I have no comment about anything to do with that.

Here, the scene shifts to give another view of Myatt and the TV crew, taken from behind, and one of the burly minders can just be seen (with his face blanked out) on the right hand side.

Then - as is common practice - some comments by Myatt were edited out for transmission, and the edited interview of the encounter continues with:


McLAGAN
But two years ago, when you were head of the NSM, the NSM was calling for the creation of 
racial terror with bombs.

MYATT
I have no comment to make about the past, as I said, and as...


Here Myatt, in saying "as I said..." is referring to some comments edited out for transmission, which comments referred to his conversion to Islam some months earlier.

The broadcast conversation continues:

McLAGAN
Well the fact that you're making no comment, doesn't that make it clear that you are excepting 
some responsibility?

MYATT
I have no comment to make about responsibility and anything to do with that.

McLAGAN
Any guilt?

MYATT
What I feel is between me and God.  It is nothing to be made public.  It is a private matter.

Myatt's reference to "God" refers back to his edited-out comment about his recent conversion to Islam.

Myatt then went on, in the Muslim persona he had by that time adopted (for whatever reason and from whatever motive), to explain that he would be happy to continue the interview, and answer any questions, later that day, after work, or at a convenient time, at his local Mosque with the Imaam of the Mosque present. These further comments, by Myatt, were never broadcast.

Myatt's personal appearance in the program is noteworthy because his mustache is shaved in the fashion of Muslims following what is called Hanafi fiqh - that is, trimmed and shaved well above the upper lip.

Also relevant to Myatt's comments - apart from his then public persona as a Muslim - is the fact that he was, at the time, still on bail following his arrest, over a year earlier, by Detectives from Scotland Yard's SO12 unit, when his house was searched for seven hours by seven Police officers, and computers and other items seized. Myatt was facing charges of conspiracy to murder, incitement to racial hatred, and incitement to murder, and - as a condition of his bail - had to regularly report to a London Police station where he was interrogated by officers from Special Branch. In addition, some months earlier, Myatt had been questioned, at his home, and once at Oxford Police Station, by Detectives from the Anti-Terrorism branch.


Speculations


Seasoned observers of Myatt's peregrinations and activities will quite naturally assume that one of the practical reasons Myatt may have adopted his Muslim persona some time before this BBC "interview" - and made his comments about God during that interview - was in preparation for what he then assumed would be his forthcoming trial, in a British Court of Law, on charges of incitement and conspiracy, connected to both the neo-nazi NSM and Copeland.

Perhaps Myatt intended to portray himself as some "devout Muslim", or perhaps - and this is more likely, in my view - he intended to take himself to some Muslim country from whence he could not be extradited, or where he would simply disappear from public view. For he had already made arrangements to visit Iran (which even then welcomed "holocaust deniers"), and had already begun writing polemical, Islamist, articles in support of the Taliban, so that it is plausible that his intention, after creating a public Muslim persona for himself  - helped by the Panorama program which we may assume he was delighted to take advantage of to bolster his Muslim credentials -  was to decamp to Egypt, or Afghanistan, or some other Muslim country.

Whatever the reason, some months after the Panorama program was broadcast, the British Police dropped its criminal investigation of Myatt's activities, citing "insufficient evidence to proceed to trial". As for Myatt himself, he would continue to pen his Islamist tracts and openly agitate for Jihad against the West, earning a reputation which led to him being mentioned at several NATO conferences into Islamic extremism; being called, by the author Martin Amis, a ferocious jihadi, and being the subject of a full page article in The Times, of London, newspaper under the headline Muslim Extremists in Britain.

If we assume that Myatt had - on the spur of the moment when approached by the TV crew - intended to use his appearance in the Panorama program to boost his Muslim credentials, world-wide, then it perhaps did not work out as he might have wished. For the editors of that program made no mention whatsoever of Myatt's conversion to Islam, and edited out all his comments about Islam, Allah, and his conversion, and instead choose to portray him as still a die-hard neo-nazi, leaving in only his apparently odd statement about "God".

As for items such as the statement at www.aryan-nations.org/reichsfolk/reply1.html – which were allegedly issued by Myatt sometime in 2000 CE before or after the Panorama program was broadcast – it is my view that these, if genuine, were either merely Myatt’s rather cynical (and some might argue, sinister) attempts at that particular time to “play both sides against the middle”; or (more likely) a propagandistic ruse designed to keep his enemies, and the Police and the security services, guessing about his real intentions. That the Reply to Allegations item contains an old recycled article written by Myatt some time before his conversion to Islam – rather than a newly written item – seems, in my view, to support the propaganda ruse theory.





PointyHat
October 2009 CE