Police attacked neighbours first

[orestes]

Lawyer condemns 'wild west' police raid

· Suspects' neighbours feared for their lives
· 'Illegal' action condemned as residents query tip-off

Audrey Gillan and Hugh Muir
Monday June 5, 2006
The Guardian


A family caught up in Friday's police operation to stop an alleged terror plot yesterday spoke of how they thought they were about to die when police armed with machine guns smashed their front door and stormed through their terrace house in the dark of night.
Three men, a woman and an eight-month-old baby were asleep in their rented home on Lansdown Road, in east London, when officers from Scotland Yard's S019 elite firearms unit made their way into the house. The family live next door to Mohammed Abdul Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, who were arrested at around 4am by police hunting for traces of chemicals which MI5 feared would be used to stage an attack on Britain.

The family, who originally came from Gujerat in western India, said they barely knew their neighbours, whose heritage is Bangladeshi. They rented the house from the father of the two arrested men and said the only time they spoke to him was when he came to collect their rent. Kahar was shot in the operation on his home at number 46 and following hospital treatment was yesterday being questioned at Paddington Green high-security police station. Their family claim they have nothing to do with terrorism.

Yesterday, Hanif [he does not wish his second name to be published], the brother of one of the tenants of number 48, said when he saw the police with machine guns he thought they were going to kill him. "I was so terrified, I thought I was going to die," he said.

Hanif had been asleep when he heard a commotion. He got up as the bedroom door was forced open by police. "I saw a guy with a machine gun pointing and he hit me on the side of the head straight away with the butt. Another man hit me behind my knees, then tied my hands with plasticuffs. I saw blood coming from my head. The guy noticed it and took a bandage out and put it on me."

Hanif was visiting his brother Ayub - a local imam who was working at the time of the raid - who lives in the house with his partner, Rukhsana, their baby and his two nephews, Feroz, 32, and Inayat, 35.

Rukhsana, 39, said she had gone to the bathroom when she found strange men in the house. She ran to her room. "I thought they were thieves," she said. "They said take your baby ... I realised they were not thieves but police. When we had to leave I said could I prepare some milk for the baby and put some clothes on because I was in my nightie but they said no."

Each of the family had their DNA and fingerprints taken and were asked about the basement under their house used by the alleged terror suspects. They said they knew nothing about it except they had assumed it was a gym. None of the neighbouring family were arrested and they were released without charge. They have not been allowed to return to their home, which has been sealed off.

The family are being advised by the solicitor Gareth Peirce, who is representing the relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes who was shot dead by anti-terrorist police in a botched operation. "They were never arrested, instead they were assaulted and unlawfully detained. Police officers are particularly warned that any blow to the head is potentially fatal. This was as lawless as the wild west."

Yesterday, local Muslims sought assurances that the whole raid was not undertaken on flimsy evidence.

Local police chiefs began touring the local mosques on Friday afternoon, as part of an effort at "community reassurance".

[PercyPenguin]

So much for an Englishman's home being his castle.....