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Raid man 'shot without warning'
13/06/2006 15:17 - (SA)
London - A British man shot by anti-terrorist police during a pre-dawn raid on an east London house said on Tuesday the officer gave him no warning before pulling the trigger.
Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, who was shot in the shoulder, said
he thought he was going to die during the operation.
Police said they had "very specific intelligence" about a
chemical device from a tip-off and were left with no choice to
mount the June 2 raid.
"We both had eye contact - he shot me straight away," Kahar
told a news conference.
"I just saw an orange spark and a big bang. I flew into the wall, slipped down. There was blood coming down my chest. I knew I was shot."
'I thought I was going to die'
Conflicting reports have emerged about how he was shot, with
some newspapers saying there had been a struggle. Police have
said only that a shot was fired and an inquiry is under way.
Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, 20, said they believed
their house in Forest Gate was being burgled, because the police
did not identify themselves.
"I thought one by one they are going to kill us," said Kahar, his right arm in a sling. "I thought I was going to die.
"My whole upper body was just burning. It seemed like I was
on fire. I was just screaming, saying 'please, it's burning'.
The pain was just killing me."
Released after arrest
"They tried to murder my brother," Koyair said. "They
dragged me away from my brother and they dragged me down the
stairs and they were hitting me."
The pair were released without charge last week after being
arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Police under pressure
They denied any link to terrorism and said they had no idea
why police had raided their house.
Their release and the police's apparent failure to find
evidence in the house of a chemical bomb raised questions over
the intelligence which led to the raid.
Newspapers said the high-profile operation had increased
pressure on London police chief Ian Blair, who has already been
heavily criticised over the fatal shooting on a London train
last July of a Brazilian wrongly suspected of being a suicide
bomber.
The Forest Gate operation, which involved police wearing
chemical, biological and radiological protection suits, was one
of the biggest since last July's bombings in London killed 52
commuters.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson declined to comment.
- Reuters
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