Shot man describes terror raid

Staff and agencies
The Guardian
Jun. 13, 2006

The man shot by police during a dawn terror raid on a suspected bomb factory in east London, broke down today as he described the moment anti-terrorist officers stormed his house.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, said he heard his brother's screams, turned a corner on the stairs, saw a "orange spark" and heard a bang as he was hit by the bullet.

Speaking publicly about the 4am raid for the first time, he told a press conference in Forest Gate, east London, that he assumed the house was being robbed.

"From my room I could hear this screaming so I got out of bed," he said. Describing the moment he knew he was shot, he said: "I was on the floor, I looked at my chest and I saw bleeding coming down my chest and I saw the hole in my chest."

Mr Kahar said he lay on the stair bleeding and was kicked in the face and told to "shut the fuck up".

The brothers - who deny any involvement with terrorism - were held at Paddington Green police station until being released without charge on Friday.

Their sister, Humeya Kalam, today told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she had been "petrified" during the operation, in which police were looking for a suspected bomb factory.

"It was pitch dark, then there was light and guns everywhere," she said. "They were dragging innocent people to the floor, guns to their heads, handcuffing.

"I heard doors being smashed, windows being broken. I woke up, opened my door and saw a person dressed all in black, gun pointing towards me.

"I shut the door. The door was banged open and a person shouted: 'On the floor! On the floor!' The next thing I knew, I am on the floor, petrified, handcuffed."

She said the police had not identified themselves "until I left the house".

"I was dragged down the stairs into the police van," she said. "When I saw the police van, obviously I realised these were police. I thought they were armed burglars and I was going to die."

The press conference came amid mounting questions over heavy-handed police tactics in the anti-terror raid.

Mr Blair yesterday told a No 10 press conference: "I retain complete confidence in our police and our security services in tackling the terrorist threat we face.

"I don't want them to be under any inhibition at all in going after those people who are engaged in terrorism. We have to, as a country, stand behind them and give them understanding in the very difficult work they do.

"This is not the moment to question either our police commissioner or the security services. They are doing a fine job in protecting the country."

Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, today accused the Independent Police Complaints Commission of helping to "smear" embattled Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair by failing to prevent leaks of its report into the fatal shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes.

He applauded Sir Ian's record on neighbourhood and community policing in the capital and dismissed the current attacks upon him as largely as campaign by the rightwing press.

Sir Ian has been under increasing pressure over both the east London the raid and the fatal shooting of Mr de Menezes by anti-terrorism police at Stockwell underground station, in south London, last year.