Top cop blasts ABC over leaked bomb photos

Ian Blair warned the press that release of potentially sensitive information could damage the bombing inquiry. Picture / Reuters

LONDON - The country's top police officer has lashed out at American media outlet ABC News' decision to televise leaked photographs of key evidence as part of its news coverage of the terror attacks in the capital.

Wednesday's edition of "World News Tonight" aired photos of unexploded devices found in the trunk of a car at the Luton train station. The photos were widely picked up by newspapers around the world and even aired on the BBC the next day.

The pictures, which had not been released by Scotland Yard, showed an X-ray image of a glass bottle packed with explosives and covered by nails. The network also showed images of the wreckage of bombed tube trains in the aftermath of the July 7 attacks.

Speaking Thursday at a news conference in London, Metropolitan Police commissioner Ian Blair said he believed the pictures had been leaked in the US and warned that the release of potentially sensitive information could damage the inquiry.

"I am concerned that some of the photos were supplied in confidence to some of our colleague agencies in the US and were published there and subsequently around the world," Blair said.

British newspapers and television stations had used the pictures despite Met requests to not do so.

"World News Tonight" executive producer Jon Banner said ABC News had asked for further information from Scotland Yard regarding why it didn't want the pictures shown but got no response. ABC proceeded with the decision to air the footage on "World News Tonight" after a vigorous process.

"It's something we take great care in. We have a vp of standards and practices. We talked to law enforcement in London and here in the states. We talked to our own security consultants," Banner said. "We thought the story was newsworthy. We believe that to this day."

Banner said ABC News was sensitive to the fact that British authorities didn't want the photographs broadcast in the U.K.

"We gave the London investigators the benefit of the doubt by not airing our broadcast in London that night," Banner said.

"We evaluated the story we had, which is larger than just the pictures," Banner said. "This plot may have been larger, there were 16 unexploded devices, which we found to be quite troubling."

ABC News also absorbed criticism in another part of the world Friday when Russia's foreign ministry reacted angrily to the "Nightline" airing of an interview Thursday night with the mastermind of the Beslan school massacre, Shamil Basayev. The foreign ministry summoned the US charge d'affaires in Moscow, Daniel Russell, to express its disapproval.

Boris Malakhov, a Foreign Ministry official speaking on Russian television, said Moscow condemned "the airing on a leading US TV network of an interview with a bandit and murderer of children, Shamil Basayev, who was put on the U.N.'s international terrorist list."

"By doing so, the US network demonstrated an outrageous disregard for standards of journalistic responsibility and human values," Malakhov said. "The airing of this interview disagrees with the efforts of the global community, including Russia and the U.S., in the fight against the threat of global terrorism."

The interview had been conducted by freelance journalist Andrei Babitsky, who met with Chechen rebels in June. He sought out a Western broadcast outlet that would air the interview, and "Nightline" executive producer Tom Bettag and anchor Ted Koppel decided it was newsworthy. Knowing the subject matter would be controversial, ABC News alerted the Russian embassy earlier in the week.

The televising of leaked photos from the London bombings was not the first time police have clashed with the media since July 7. Police have urged news networks, including Sky News, BBC News 24 and ITN news, not to air pictures or videos sent in by witnesses before authorities have examined them as evidence.

Broadcasters reported receiving hundreds of text messages and video images within hours of the four bomb attacks in London, as multimedia-enabled cell phones were able to send images of the underground carnage and surface explosions that police believe could contain valuable evidence.

Representatives for Sky News could not be reached for comment, but a source at the country's most popular news network said that pictures, texts and broadcasts were reviewed internally before going on air.

"It's not as if we just put things out there without thinking about the consequences. We have a process," the source said.

On the advice of police, Sky News suspended live pictures Friday morning of a West London police siege believed to involve one of the failed bombers.

- REUTERS