Aussie PM: London death toll 52
2005-07-08 06:40
Sydney - The death toll from the bomb blasts that hit the London transport system has risen to 52, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday.
"The latest advice I have is that the death toll is currently 52, some hundreds injured. In the nature of things, sadly, the death toll is likely to climb," Howard told reporters in Canberra after a briefing with his top counter-terrorism officials.
Howard said his fellow Australians felt deep sympathy for their British friends, particularly since so many had journeyed to London over generations.
"This brutal, indiscriminate, unforgivable attack on innocent people going about their daily lives is a mark of the depraved character of the people who carried these out," he said.
The prime minister said Australia, which had seven citizens injured in the blasts, would send a police team, including a bomb expert, to London to assist the investigation into the bombings.
"We are sending a special group to the United Kingdom comprising six people, three officers of the Australian Federal Police, including people with counter-terrorism and bomb experience, one office from Victorian Police, one of NSW (New South Wales) police and one from the Department of Transport and Regional Services," he said.
Australian police earned an excellent reputation for forensic investigation of bomb blasts following the October 2002 attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Howard said the Australian government's national counter-terrorism committee, comprising all relevant commonwealth and state agencies, met overnight and decided not to upgrade the national terrorism alert level, which has stood at "medium" since the day after the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States.
"There has been no change in the alert level in Australia, it remains at medium," he said. "That was, I am told, the unanimous view of the people participating in that meeting. The situation of course will continue to be reviewed.
"We do not have any specific intelligence of any kind suggesting that because this attack has taken place that it is more likely that there will be an attack on the Australian homeland.
"I would like nonetheless to say that this country could be subject to an attack like this ... I have never concealed my view that this country could experience a very serious terrorist attack."