A state ceremony has honoured Arnaud Beltrame, the French police officer who lost his life taking the place of a hostage when a jihadist attacked a supermarket. President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Beltrame, a practising Catholic who had reserved a special part of his house as a prayer room. Beltrame was posthumously awarded France’s highest medal, the Legion d’Honneur.
Barrister accuses police of targeting Cardinal Pell
Australian police created a taskforce targeting Cardinal George Pell a year before any formal allegations had been made, a court heard last week. In a hearing to decide whether the cardinal will stand trial, defence barrister Robert Richter QC said that police started the operation in 2013 but failed to find accusers until a year later. When police did identify accusers, they then failed to follow normal procedures in seeking corroboration, he argued. “When [Operation] Tethering started it was an operation looking for a crime because no crime had been reported,” Mr Richter said. Mr Richter asked Detective Superintendent Paul Sheridan whether the taskforce was specific to Cardinal Pell. “That’s my understanding,” he responded, adding later that it was “commenced as an intel probe into what offences might have occurred”. The investigation became an “operation” in April 2015 based on allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” but without allegations of criminal conduct, Mr Richter added. “It’s an operation launched without any victims,” he said. “That’s astonishing in a serious investigation of a very, very high-profile suspect.”
