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sonz
06-04-2006, 05:29 PM
CAIRO — The neighbors of two British Muslims arrested at their east London home in a dawn police raid on Friday, June 2, accused London's Metropolitan Police of serious human rights violations including the handcuffing of a grandmother, a British paper reported on Sunday, June 4.

"We would like to express our deep shock and anger at the operation that took place," a neighbor family, who wish to remain anonymous, said in a statement published by The Observer.

"My family members and I were physically assaulted. I received serious head injuries that required hospital treatment."

Witnesses described how a younger brother was arrested and "dragged down the road, put down on the pavement and then plastic sheets were put on him and he was into white overalls."

Other neighbors said that even the grandmother of the family was led from the home in handcuffs.

Police questioned the family members for twelve hours before releasing them without charge.

Making clear they are "completely innocent and in no way involved in any terrorist activity," the family members are considering a legal action against police.

Asad Rehman, chairman of the anti-racism Newham Monitoring Project organization, said the family urged prominent human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce to take legal action against police.

Traumatized

Blair could face legal charges over the fatal shooting of an innocent Brazilian man last July.

Security services said they were hunting for a "suicide vest" that would pump out poison gas, a claim questioned by British intelligence MI5.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar was shot by police during the raid while his brother Abul Koyair was seized.

Lawyer Kate Roxburgh, representing Kahar, who is recovering under police guard in a London hospital, said "he absolutely denies any involvement in any terrorist activity."

Kahar, she added, was traumatized after rushing out of bed upon hearing screams from downstairs and was now suffering a lot of pain after being shot in the chest.

He accused police of shooting him without warning and without being threatened in any way.

Roxburgh described her client's account of the shooting: "He was woken up about four in the morning by screams from downstairs, got out of bed in his pyjamas obviously unarmed, nothing in his hands and hurrying down the stairs.

"As he came toward a bend in the stairway, not knowing what was going on downstairs, the police turned the bend up towards him and shot him - and that was without any warning."

She added: "He wasn't asked to freeze, given any warning and didn't know the people in his house were police officers until after he was shot. He is lucky still to be alive."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched an investigation into the shooting, which will be overseen by Deborah Glass, the IPCC Commissioner for London and the South East.

The operation is a grime reminder of last year's fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes - an innocent Brazilian - by police in the wake of the 7 July terror bombings.

Plainclothes police chased the man onto an underground train after he ignored warnings to stop and one of them shot him five times in the head point blank.

The Observer said Sunday that Britain's top police officer Sir Ian Blair and two commanders in control of the operation could face legal charges over the death of the young man.

The three are the focus of the final legal analysis of the July 22 shooting of the 27-year-old by Crown prosecutors, it said.

In the wake of the London attacks, Blair orders his men to shoot "suspected" bombers in the head.

Rights activists slammed the shoot-to-kill policy, which was supported by Prime Minister Tony Blair, and said that they would mainly target ethnic minorities.

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-06/04/03.shtml
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