Telegraph | News | Police fear bomb has been moved

Telegraph

Police fear bomb has been moved
**otherwise known as---gee, we couldn't find a bomb but we're not willing to admit we were very very wrong...EG:) **
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
(Filed: 05/06/2006)

Anti-terrorist police hunting for a suspected chemical-based bomb after a raid on a house in east London fear that the device may have been moved and could still be used.

Two days after a man was shot as armed officers stormed the house in Lansdown Road, Forest Gate, a search has failed to yield any evidence of a bomb.

Investigators from the police watchdog are trying to resolve sharply conflicting accounts

**this would generally be considered "lies" by the rest of us...**

of how a 23-year-old man was hit in the shoulder by a police bullet when the house was raided at 4am on Friday. Officers have said that a shot went off accidentally during a struggle on the stairs of the house. The injured man says he was shot without warning.

Police and MI5, whose intelligence led to the operation, are still working on the basis that the tip was reliable and that a device exists that could release poisonous gas on detonation.

As Scotland Yard braces itself for a damning report on the handling of an anti-terrorist operation last July in which an innocent Brazilian was shot dead, it is acutely aware that it will face criticism and possible legal action from the wounded man and his family if no bomb is found.

**wonder how long it will take them to hunt one up?**

A source said: "If the intelligence was wrong, we possibly have egg on our faces. We have wasted a lot of time, put a lot of people out.

The wounded man, Abul Kahar, and his brother Abul Koyair, 20, were arrested under the Terrorism Act. Through their solicitors, both have denied any knowledge of a bomb or any involvement in terrorism.

Kahar was transferred from the Royal London Hospital to Paddington Green high security police station but his solicitor, Kate Roxburgh, said a police doctor had decided that he was too ill to be questioned last night.

She said: "They have arranged a special bed for him. He is going to have his wound dressed twice a day and that is all at the moment.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is trying to establish the truth of the shooting. It has been suggested that its initial investigation of the trajectory of the bullet supports the claims of a struggle, rather than an aimed shot.

Miss Roxburgh said: "He was woken up about four in the morning by screams from downstairs, got out of bed in his pyjamas obviously unarmed and with nothing in his hands and hurried down the stairs. As he came toward a bend in the stairway, not knowing what was going on downstairs, the police turned the bend towards him and shot him - and that was without any warning.

"He was not asked to freeze, given any warning and did not know the people in his house were police officers until after he was shot. He is lucky still to be alive."

She said that claims in the News of the World that Kahar had been accidentally shot by his brother in a struggle with police were "absolute nonsense".

Julian Young, for Koyair, said: "My client accepts that he may have shouted but he says he did not struggle and did not cause his brother to be shot."