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London faces nerve gas plot
04/06/2006 08:09 - (SA)
London - British police were frantically searching on Sunday for evidence of what security sources fear is a plot to unleash sarin nerve gas or another deadly agent.
However two British men arrested at their home in a related dawn raid on Friday, one of whom is recovering from a gunshot wound in a London hospital, vehemently denied any involvement in terrorism.
Their neighbours in east London defended the brothers, whom they described as devout Muslims from an ethnic Bangladeshi family, and accused London's Metropolitan Police of heavy-handed tactics against the Muslim community.
The police said they extended their search from the home of the suspects to their London workplaces, which press reports said were the Royal Mail postal service and a Tesco supermarket.
However police have released few details about the suspects and declined to comment on news reports that experts were searching for evidence of chemical or biological weapons.
Police and the security services told The Sunday Telegraph that they were hunting for a device capable of releasing sarin in an outrage similar to the one that killed 12 people and affected more than 5 000 on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
The Sunday Express said police were hunting for a device that could release either the chemical agent sarin or the deadly biological agent anthrax, with police chiefs revealing it is believed to "be primed and ready to go".
The Sunday Telegraph said MI5 domestic intelligence agents suspect that al-Qaeda sympathisers intended to produce a nerve agent - probably sarin - and release it in a closed space such as in an underground train.
Metropolitan Police sources meanwhile told The Sunday Times that "specific intelligence" that had led to Friday's raid suggested that a single bomb overlaid with cyanide was being prepared at the targeted home.
Senior police sources said they were searching for an "improvised device rather than a sophisticated weapon" capable of releasing chemicals, according to the newspaper.
The plot would be timed to be on or close to anniversary of the suicide bombings on the London transport system that killed 56 people, including the four bombers, on July 7 last year.
However, police have said there was no direct link between the suicide attacks last year and the raid they conducted on Friday.
The Sun newspaper said there was no intelligence about a definite target, but police worried about a possible attack on a subway train or bars showing televised matches from the World Cup beginning Friday in Germany.
Peter Clarke, head of the London Metropolitan Police force's anti-terrorist branch, said the police acted on intelligence which "demanded an intensive investigation and response" following weeks of surveillance.
"We planned an operation that was designed to mitigate any threat to the public either from firearms or from any hazardous substances."
Clarke said officers were conducting a thorough investigation to prove or disprove the "specific intelligence" which prompted the raid.
Lawyers said their clients Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23 and Abul Koyair, 20, insisted they were innocent following their arrests under the Terrorism Act.
Kate Roxburgh, representing Kahar, who was recovering under police guard in a London hospital, said "he absolutely denies any involvement in any terrorist activity."
Kahar, she added, was traumatised after rushing out of bed upon hearing screams from downstairs and was now suffering a lot of pain after being shot in the chest. Some newspapers had said he was shot in the shoulder.
He also claimed that police had shot him without warning and without being threatened in any way, Roxburgh said.
Meanwhile, members of a family who live in a property adjoining the home of the suspects said Saturday that the brothers were abused by British police who detained them in the raid.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said Friday it had launched an investigation into the shooting of the elder man.
British police were heavily criticized for shooting dead an innocent Brazilian on a subway train in London last July as part of an anti-terrorist operation mounted in the aftermath of the attempted bombings.
Security sources told News of the World that the suspect was shot in the shoulder when his younger brother grabbed a police officer's gun and pulled the trigger during the struggle.
Leaflets circulating in east London call for a meeting next week to discuss the raid against the backdrop of what they say is a tendency by the government to make Muslims "scapegoats" for its failed policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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