24/06/2013 BBC News at Ten

into claims that police tried to discredit the family of Stephen

Lawrence. 20 years after the teenager was murdered in south

London, ministers seek to reassure the family. The house will agree

with me about the seriousness of allegations concerning police

corruption and wrongdoing. We must be ruthless in purging such

behaviour from its ranks. We need a public inquiry led by a judge to try

and sort out this mess. We will be asking how difficult it will be to

uncover the truth about the latest claims.

Also tonight, Nelson Mandela is still a critical condition in

hospital, the president says doctors are doing they can.

Nine months after the gun attack on a British family in the French Alps,

a man is arrested in Surrey. A seven-year jail term for Silvio

Berlusconi, the former Italian Prime Minister, for having sex with an

underage prostitute. And Rafael Nadal is knocked out of the men's

singles on the opening day of Wimbledon.

Coming up in Sportsday on BBC News, more reaction to Rafael Nadal's

exit, but Andy Murray is still on track, he beat Benjamin Becker in

straight sets to progress to round will investigate claims that police

tried to discredit the family of murdered black teenager Stephen

Lawrence. David Cameron said that he wanted to get the full truth about

the allegations, but Stephen's father says he has no confidence in

the response and he wants a judge led public inquiry. Home affairs

correspondent times on -- Tom Symonds reports.

The repercussions of his racist murder go on and on. There is now

growing evidence that in the heated atmosphere following Stephen

Lawrence's death, as his family mourn their loss and angry

protesters took to the streets, someone was watching them and

reporting back. Today the row about undercover police officers reached

Number Ten. These are absolutely dreadful allegations, and one can

only think of the Lawrence family, we suffered so much from the loss of

their son and now suffer again, hearing that potentially the police

that were meant to be helping them were actually undermining them.

the centre of the row is Peter Francis. They wanted any

intelligence that could smear the campaign. He claims to have

infiltrated at least one anti-racist group which supported the family,

looking for information to discredit them. He did not find anything. The

Home Secretary today said that two existing enquiries would now

consider the claims that he has made. For obvious reasons, police

cannot know details of undercover operations, but we must have

assurances that the work is carried out properly and within ethical

guidelines. The primary investigation is code-named

Operation Herne. Set up to look at the actions of dozens of covert

officers, it is led by the Derbyshire Chief Constable, Mick

Creedon, and overseen by the Independent Police Complaints

Commission. It may result in officers facing criminal charges. A

separate ongoing review of police corruption in the Lawrence case,

chaired by barrister Mark Ellison QC, will also be widened to take in

the latest revelations. Yvette Cooper. Labour said the government

should have created a single, new inquiry instead.

The key question tonight is who approved any covert operations in

the Lawrence case. So Paul Condon, the commissioner who took over four

months before Stephen died, today firmly denied it was him. And the

current commissioner said that answering that question would be a

challenge. Going back over that long period of time causes problems for

investigations. You have to find witnesses, many of whom have left

the Metropolitan Police. You have provided documents and computer

records, this takes a lot of time. And you have to correlated, making

sure that what people say is consistent. Neville Lawrence lives

in Jamaica. This afternoon he said two expanded enquiries would not be

enough. We need a public inquiry led by a judge to try and sort out this

mess. We don't want to go another ten years from now on something as

happened. I don't even know if I am going to be alive for another ten

years, I need to get this sorted out, done and dusted, so I can get

on with my life. Sadly, for him, the long road that began with Stephen's

death leads on. His son 's grave is in Jamaica, and the controversy

surrounding the case guarantees that his name and face are unlikely to be

forgotten for years to come. Live to Scotland Yard and Tom is

there for us now. Given the complexity that you were underlining

there and the overlapping nature of the enquiries, how difficult will it

be to work out what happened? Huw, Operation Herne has been going

on for some time, and the row about undercover officers has been going

on for some time, and as a result it has built up a body of work it needs

to get through. It is investigating dozens of officers, seemingly more

everyday, and it has 22 police officers of its own to do that work.

It is dealing with 55,000 documents, so you can see the scale of the

task. But beyond that, these officers are accused of lots of

things - for example, having relationships with activists, using

the names of dead children as cover names. Also, potentially breaking

the law themselves. After today, there is going to be a strand of

whether the Metropolitan Police was using undercover officers to defend

its own reputation, in a wide range potentially protest groups. So it

could all get very complex, and I think, reading between the lines,

Neville Lawrence's concern is that the concerns about this case might

get lost in all that detail. But Mick Creedon, the Chief Constable of

Derbyshire, leading this investigation, Operation Herne, has

said very clearly today that if officers have been proven have

broken the law, they will be prosecuted.

Thanks very much, Tom Symonds at new Scotland Yard.

Nelson Mandela remains critically ill in hospital in Pretoria. He has

been suffering from a persistent lung condition. Jacob Zuma originals

of Africans to pray for him and says doctors were doing all they could to

make him more comfortable. Africa correspondent Andrew Harding is at

the hospital with the latest. Yes, Huw, good evening. For some

time the authorities here have been trying to sound as upbeat as humanly

possible about Nelson Mandela's eight, but that has now changed to

magically. We are not being told a great deal of medical information,

but tonight the authorities are making it very clear that Nelson

Mandela is indeed fighting for his Anxiety and hope plastered on the

walls outside Nelson Mandela's hospital today, messages of support

for an increasingly frail man. The 94-year-old, already in intensive

care, took another turn for the worse this weekend, his condition

now described as critical. Doctors are doing everything possible to

ensure his well-being and comfort. Perhaps you could give us more

information about his condition. What I understand is that when a

person is critical, the person is critical. I am not a doctor to

describe conditions. To say how critical. I think that is the

business of a doctor. Nelson Mandela's lungs were damaged by

tuberculosis during the years he spent in prison for fighting against

white minority rule. In old age, he has battled against repeated

infections. Today his family, daughters, grandchildren and his

ex-wife, came to visit him in hospital. After a tense fortnight,

the mood here is increasingly sombre. It is hard to convey you

hold that Nelson Mandela still has this country is emergent nation.

Liberation hero, Peacemaker, even if some worry now that South Africa is

losing its way. He has played his role, the rest is left for us.

South Africa be OK once he has gone? It makes no difference with or

without Mandela. People are suffering. What does he mean to you?

Without him, I would not be sitting tonight, but no fresh information

about the patient within. There is concern here continuing to

grow, and we understand that Nelson Mandela's wife, grass Shell, has

been at his bedside overnight, sleeping in the hospital. As time

goes by, people are becoming more comfortable, if you like, with the

sense of the inevitability of about where all this is leading, and

indeed you do stars to hear people discussing Nelson Mandela's legacy

in a way that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.

Thank you, Andrew Harding, with the latest.

A man has been arrested by police investigating the murders of three

members of a British family in the French Alps last summer. He is

believed to be the brother of Saad al-Hilli, who was shot dead in his

car, along with his wife and mother-in-law. They're two young job

and survived the attack. Daniela Relph reports. -- their two young

children. Brutal, ruthless and baffling, the

family car was riddled with bullet holes, a sign of the savagery of the

murder in a picturesque part of the French Alps. It is understood that

Zaid al-Hilli was arrested at around 7:30am this morning. We had

previously spoken to police as a witness, but the rest was on

suspicion of conspiracy to murder. His brother, Saad al-Hilli, was

killed along with his wife and mother-in-law. There had been

rumours of a feud between the brothers over an inheritance. The

family was attacked near a hamlet in the French Alps. Just before four

o'clock local time on the 5th of September last year, their car was

found by a British man who was cycling in the area. Inside were the

bodies of the three adult members of the family. Outside, Saad

al-Hilli's elder daughter was found seriously injured. When forensic

teams arrived from Paris eight hours later, they discovered her

four-year-old sister, still inside the car, hiding by her mother's

body. Zaid al-Hilli has always denied being involved in the

murders. He said there was no family row over money and that he had a

good relationship with his brother. Detectives spent much of the day

searching his flat and took away a number of items. The French police

continue to work closely with the Surrey force. The chief prosecutor

in France has always said that there would be no quick solution to this

the whereabouts of Edward Snowden, the former CIA worker who leaked

information about a secret American surveillance programme. He arrived

in Moscow yesterday from Hong Kong, where he had fled earlier this

month. The White House says it expects Russia to look at all

options to expel Mr Snowden, but the government of Ecuador says it is

considering a request to grant him asylum, as Gordon Corera reports.

Aeroflot flight SU150 from Moscow to Havana, packed with journalists, but

see to 70A, booked in the name of Edward Snowden, was empty. The plane

took off a few minutes late, leaving the whereabouts of the former spy a

mystery, and Washington still looking for him. What we know is

that we are following all the appropriate legal channels and

working with various other countries to make sure that the rule of law is

observed. Snowden is wanted for spilling secrets about Britain's

GCHQ and America's NSA. How the latter has been gathering

information on domestic phone calls, and how GCHQ has been tapping

into global communications traffic. Edward Snowden is on the run, a

wanted man. He left his job as a contract in Hawaii in June for Hong

Kong, where he began to leak documents. This weekend he fled

American attempts to and extradite him from Hong Kong to Moscow, and

today he was expected to go to Havana. He has been accompanied by

this woman, Sarah Harrison, who works with Julian Assange's

WikiLeaks. Assange is holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and

says that Ecuador is where Snowden wants to go. The current status of

Mr Snowden and Miss Harrison, both are healthy and safe. I cannot give

further information as to their whereabouts or present circumstances

other than to say that the matter is in hand.

Washington is making clear its annoyance with countries that have

allowed Snowden to escape its grasp. For the moment, the former spy has

disappeared from view. A court in Milan has sentenced the

former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to seven years in

jail for having sex with an under-age prostitute. Tonight Mr

Berlusconi said he was entirely innocent of the charges and insisted

the conviction was politically motivated. The sentence won't come

into force yet as he has the right to appeal. This report contains

flash photography. For the former Italian Prime

Minister, this was a humiliation, to be found guilty of paying for sex

with a 17-year-old, under-age erotic dancer. Silvio Berlusconi was not in

court to hear the sentence. The three women judges sentenced him to

seven years, but he is most unlikely to see the inside of a prison.

TRANSLATION: It's not a question of being political or apolitical. It's

a sentence that's completely out of reality and unrelated to the

evidence during the trial. Ruby's real name was Karima El Mahroug, who

had been invited to the so-called bunga bunga parties in his Villa.

She also was not in court. Ruby has denied having sex with the former

Italian leader. The prosecution alleges she had been paid off with

4. 5 million euros. She also has been giving evidence in another

trial, in which three of Berlusconi's aides, including a TV

performer, was accused of procuring women for the parties. They deny the

charges. One of those who attended the bunga bunga parties was this

woman. She told me that the evenings were polite dinners, although later

she was reported as admitting having had sex with the former premiere.

TRANSLATION: A girl would never come up with this by herself. People make

up stories. There are others behind this trying to harm him. Silvio

Berlusconi was also today banned from public office for abusing his

position to help Ruby. He will now appeal. He insisted again today he

was innocent and that the case was an attempt to remove him from public

life. It's a very, very serious issue, very, very political issue

and I think that this verdict will have an impact on the Italian

history. The verdict has divided public opinion. This woman said -

seven years is little. They should have given him even more. The

political concern is that this verdict will deepen divisions and

sharpen tension inside the governing coalition that Berlusconi is part

of, at an economically fragile time for Italy.

Lebanon is experiencing some of the worst violence since the start of

the Syrian conflict two years ago. Sectarian outbreaks continue to

spill over the border. For the second day, there have been violent

clashes in Sidon, 25 miles south of the capital. At least 16 soldiers

have been killed and 50 people wounded after the army fought with

armed supporters of a hard-line Sunni Muslim cleric. Our Middle East

Editor, Jeremy Bowen reports. The Lebanese army sent in heavy

weapons and has captured the mosque that was the headquarters of the

Sunni Muslim gunmen they've been fighting. Armed clashes started

inside at the end of last week. On Sunday, the Sunni gunmen attacked

the Lebanese army. It's traditionally seen in Lebanon as a

truly national institution. The attacks in Sidon and this show of

force in Tripoli, the second city, are a direct sectarian challenge to

the weak Lebanese state. These gunmen are a vocal and dangerous

minority, inspired by an extremist Sunni cleric, who says the Lebanese

army is a tool of Hezbollah. Last week, he said we're having daily

problems with the army. They're doing nothing to protect us from the

Shia militia. We have to do something to defend ourselves.

Army families have started burying their dead. Power in Lebanon is

split between religious groups. Peace in Lebanon depends on

preserving a delicate balance of power. The spilling over into beb

none of deck tarn killing from -- Lebanon of sectarian killing from

Syria means the country's losing balance. The Syrian Foreign Minister

talked about the dangers of what's happening in Sidon.

TRANSLATION: It's so dangerous. We've warned from the beginning of

the crisis that the reflections of what's going on in Syria will be

dangerous for our neighbours. In Lebanon, the army is caught

between Sunnis, who tend to support the Syrian rebels, and Shia, who

tend to support the Assad regime. The Syrian war is super heating the

1400-year-old quarrel between the two main branches of Islam. Tension

between Shia and Sunni Muslims is increasing across the Middle East.

In Egypt, four Shi'ites, including a well known cleric, were killed by a

mob at the weekend. The killings have been widely condemned in Egypt,

but some critic's the Egypt's president, a religious Sunni, have

accused him of not doing enough to stop incitement against Shia Muslims

by Sunni preachers. In the Middle East many believe the growing crisis

between Shias and Sunnis is the most dangerous threat they face. Syria

starts at the top of the ridge and Lebanon is vulnerable to what

happens there. Across the Middle East, this new era risks being

defined by sectarian conflict. Two health executives at the centre

of allegations of a cover up by the Care Quality Commission have denied

suppressing a critical internal report. Jill Finney, a former deputy

chief executive, insists that she hadn't tried to cover up failings in

the way the regulator investigated the deaths of babies at a hospital

in Cumbria. Her former boss, Cynthia Bower, claimed she too was being

unfairly claimed. Our health correspondent Branwen Jefferies

reports. Poor care at the maternity unit in

Furness cost babies' lives. Even as concerns were emerging the watchdog

gave the Trust a clean bill of health. Joshua Titcombe died at nine

days old from a treatable infection. His family among several that wanted

to know how that could happen. So the CQC ordered a review but that

was never published. Four officialed were at a meeting in March 2012

where it was discussed. Cynthia Bower and her deputy, Jill Finney,

are alleged to have ordered the report to be deleted, an allegation

they say is wrong. Now Jill Finney has spoken for the first time,

arguing there was no cover up. recollection of the meeting is that

the report needed further work. We felt it came to the work conclusion,

because whilst it challenged what we had done, it said that actually,

therefore, CQC had done all that was sufficient. That was not correct.

CQC could and should have done more. Cynthia Bower faced criticism from

MPs when she was chief executive of the CQC. In an interview with the

independent newspaper she has hit back saying she's been hung out to

dry by the new chief executive. She criticised the decision to publish

allegations based on notes taken by one person at the meeting. If David

Bien really believed there had been a cover up by the previous chief

executive he should have referred it to the police. The police are

looking into what happened but have no decision about whether to take

action. For the doctors gathered here, this row is one part of a

wider debate about the culture within the NHS. Is it open enough

when it makes mistakes? Can they raise concerns? The doctors' union

says things are changing for the better, but slowly. It's not getting

better quick enough and everywhere. Doctors are still concerned that

when they want to raise serious concerns they might be victimised or

harassed. Ministers say the culture in the NHS is changing and they have

confidence in the new leadership team at the watchdog, but this

damaging row about whether there was a cover up or not shows no signs of

diminishing. Tennis now, there's been a major

surprise on the opening day at Wimbledon. The former men's

champion, Rafael Nadal, has been knocked out in the first round.

Britain's Andy Murray enjoyed a convincing victory in under two

hours. Some things never change, whether

it's the queues outside or the cuisine inside. Amid the tradition,

day one was about to shock. Rafael Nadal, the French Open champion, his

opponent someone called Steve Darcis from Belgium, 135th in the world,

the definition of a journeyman. No contest? No chance. Nadal, seemingly

hampered by a knee problem, looked entirely out of sorts. As he wobbled

Darcis didn't, seizing his moment in spell binding style. There's nothing

wrong with his knees. The result - one of the biggest giant killings in

Wimbledon history. A straight sets win for Darcis as glorious in

victory as his opponent was gracious in defeat. Congratulate Steve

Darcis. He played a fantastic match. Everything I will say today about

any knee -- my knee is an excuse. Andy Murray's day was comparatively

dull. No bad thing. He wasn't quite at his best, but he was too good for

Benjamin Becker. Murray, the only British winner today. At least the

home crowd had something to celebrate.

Game, set and match Murray. cheers here on the hill for Andy

Murray. His fans know far tougher tests will follow, but on a dramatic

first day, it's a solid start. There's always nerves before the

first match in a Grand Slam, especially here, for me. Glad to get

it out of the way and hopefully, I'll keep improving. There was a

straight sets win for Roger Federer, who demolished his opponent in