Angry families threaten legal action against police over anti-terror raid

Angry families threaten legal action against police over anti-terror raid: "he Observer

A young Muslim man shot by police on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist chemical plot last night protested his innocence and alleged that police failed to give warning before opening fire.
Solicitors for Mohammed Abdul Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, who was also seized in a dawn raid on Friday involving 250 police officers, said they denied any wrongdoing.

A family who live next door to the brothers alleged that they were also arrested and assaulted, leaving one man with a head injury and needing hospital treatment. They are considering legal action against the police.

Kahar was shot in the shoulder during the raid in east London as police reportedly searched for a 'suicide vest' that would pump out poison gas - a claim questioned by MI5 yesterday. As he remained under armed guard in hospital, his solicitor, Kate 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.'"