(no subject)

[webofevil]

Vaguely alleged terrorist Abul Koyair, apparently underwater

Ah, the sounds of an English summer. The drone of excuses, the smack of truncheon on Muslim. “Nobody identified themselves as police as they stormed in wearing terrifying black hoods and started bashing them over the head,” says the lawyer for the men who were attacked by officers acting on “specific intelligence”. This last phrase is routinely used so reverently you’d think the speaker had just found the mummified remains of Christ, as if the police’s intelligence-gathering hadn’t been exposed as effectively fucking useless in last summer’s hilarious south London romp. (“Sir, we’ve shot a Brazilian in Stockwell.” “Oh my God, how many’s a Brazillion?”, etc.)

The question isn’t “Why did they shoot?” but “Who had convinced them they were about to face down swivel-eyed terrorists in the first place?” Where are they getting this duff intelligence from? I’d really like to think that there's good work going on that we don’t hear about, actual intelligence being acted on and dealt with quietly, but high-profile all-guns-blazing actions like this that produce no results don’t inspire confidence.

The ex-commander of the Met Flying Squad said he thought the raid was “very unprofessional... If you’re going to mount an operation like this, you want to have enough evidence to charge people with a criminal conspiracy... You don’t go in on the speculation that you might find the product.” If the Sweeney is telling you you’re being too eager and heavy-handed, you might be due a rethink.

Does the fact that Mohammed Kahar was shot in the shoulder indicate crap marksmanship or a deliberate shift in policy? And if he had died, would we now be facing another sorry round of “the dog ate my homework” from Special Branch?

Leaked official report damns Met bosses for de Menezes shooting (News of the World, 10.06.06)

The leaked Independent Police Complaints Commission report shows a catalogue of blunders and cock-ups [surely “cocks-up”?—Hansard]. The dossier is so damning it appears to spell the end for Met chief Sir Ian Blair.

The IPCC appealed to a judge to stop our story being published. But Mr Justice Gray threw out their application for a gagging order.

The report reveals how officers:

* USED the Prime Minister's name in a bid to stop the IPCC probe,

* FAILED to pass on alerts from the undercover team that they were tailing an innocent man,

* DELAYED five hours in deploying ‘specialist’ firearms cops who could have taken him alive,

* DOCTORED a Special Branch log of the surveillance operation leading to the shooting, as revealed by the News of the World in January, and

* FOULED up orders to frontline men, ordering that the suspect be “stopped” which was tragically interpreted as “kill him”.

The worst news for Sir Ian is the revelation that some of his most senior aides knew of de Menezes’ innocence but kept it from him for 12 hours.

An IPCC-linked source told us: “That’s a cast-iron fact. The question is why. The belief in Whitehall is that it's because Sir Ian is notorious for taking bad news very badly—they just couldn't face telling him so they left it until Saturday morning.”

But they did not anticipate the publicity-hungry Commissioner would seize the first chance, on his way into work next day, to arrogantly boast to TV cameras what a terrific job his officers had done in stopping a “suicide bomber”.

Our IPCC source added: “Sir Ian has always insisted neither he nor his senior officers knew the wrong man had been shot before about 10am Saturday. But the report proves two Yard departments knew the truth by 9.45pm Friday.

“And Sir Ian’s desperation to prevent the commission investigating the shooting has done him great damage. Just 42 minutes after the incident his office issued orders to exclude us from the inquiry, even citing the Prime Minister... an appalling lack of judgement. This could force him to resign.”

Comments

[dermfitz.livejournal.com]

And getting Paul Daniels on to put Sir Ian Blair into a see-through box and move bits of him around like Debbie McGee isn't distracting anyone. You can see the joins.

[amuchmoreexotic.livejournal.com]

“Who had convinced them they were about to face down swivel-eyed terrorists in the first place?”

From what I've read, the "specific intelligence" came from the Canadian bust of a network of alleged homegrown terrorists.

They were linked to a London-based "cyberterrorist" (ie he ran websites and posted on forums), who supposedly went by the "handle" Irhabi007, which means Terrorist007. Clearly a master of subterfuge there. It's probably the name he used when he was playing Counterstrike (http://www.counter-strike.net).

Irhabi007 was arrested last November, though, so it's not like the police just found his address book.

Re: the shoulder shooting thing - there's no way the new policy is "shoot to maim one arm". I bet you anything that the poor bloke who got shot was coming downstairs to find out what all the noise was about, and gave a police officer who was going the other way such a nasty fright that he started and his gun went off.