British police criticised over 'chemical bomb' raid

Muslim groups and a body which oversees policing have accused British police of making a series of errors in a dramatic counter-terrorism raid in London last week during which they shot one of two men arrested.

Police freed 20-year-old Abul Koyair and 23-year-old Mohammed Abdul Kahar without charges on Friday and have admitted that they did not find the bomb which they said was the focus of the dawn raid on the house in east London.

Murad Qureshi, one of the Metropolitan Police Authority's 23 members said British police had to learn from "a series of mistakes" made in the raid.

"They cover everything from the collection of intelligence and how you corroborate that ... through to how the suspects are actually dealt with, particularly in this case how we find ourselves with one of the brothers shot," he told BBC radio.

The Authority is charged with ensuring that London's police are accountable for the services they provide to people in the capital and is comprised of people appointed by the Mayor of London, magistrates and the cabinet minister in charge of British law enforcement.

More than 250 officers took part in the raid on the house in the ethnically mixed neighbourhood of Forest Gate on June 2, which Muslim groups have slammed as heavy handed.

Muslim campaigners were planning to stage a demonstration on Sunday outside Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police's London headquarters, to voice their anger at what they called "rising islamophobia".

"With the intensification of 'terror raids' throughout the country and 'trial by media' sensationalism, communities are under severe attack and must show unity," the groups, including the Muslim Association of Britain and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said in a joint statement.

The Metropolitan Police force is also facing another embarrassing Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into the shooting death of a Brazilian man.

Police shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes in the weeks after Muslim suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured 700 others last July in attacks carried out on London transport. Police wrongly identified Menezes as a suicide bomber.

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain said police needed to acknowledge they had made errors in last week's raid to prevent extremist groups exploiting resentment in the Muslim community.

"Some recognition that mistakes have been made would go some way towards the damage done," he told Reuters.

"Even at the height of the IRA bombing campaign in the 1970s we didn't see the police storming into innocent Irish people's homes on this kind of scale."

Police said they would repair damage to the house caused by the search. Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman has apologised for the disruption caused by the raid, but said the police had had "no choice" but to act on "very specific intelligence".

The operation, in which officers wore chemical, biological and radiological protection suits, was one of the biggest emergency operations since last July's suicide bomb attacks on London underground trains and a bus killed 52 people.

- REUTERS