UK police scour house for traces of chemical bomb

By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) – British anti-terrorist police on Sunday
searched for evidence of a suspected chemical bomb plot at a
house raided two days ago as officers quizzed two men.

Police detained the men on Friday after 250 officers, some
in chemical suits, stormed the east London home.

Intelligence had suggested the house may have been used to
make a toxic bomb for an attack in Britain, police sources
said.

One of the suspects, a 23-year-old man, was shot during the
dawn raid and is recovering in hospital.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is
investigating the shooting, refused on Sunday to comment on
newspaper speculation that the man was shot in a scuffle with
officers and that the police did not pull the trigger.

“Our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the
discharge of the firearm continues,” said a spokesman for the
commission. He could not say how long the inquiry would take.

Kate Roxburgh, the lawyer of the wounded man, said on
Saturday police fired on him without warning.

British firearms police have been under the spotlight since
they shot dead an innocent Brazilian man, Jean Charles de
Menezes, in the weeks following last year’s suicide bombings in
the capital. They wrongly identified him as a suicide bomber.

Friday’s raid was one of the biggest operations since the
July attacks although police said it was not related.

Police said on Sunday they were concentrating their search
on the house in London’s Forest Gate, an ethnically mixed area
with a sizeable Muslim population. They carried out “small
searches” on Saturday at the workplaces of the two suspects.

“The search will continue,” said a spokesman for London
police. “We have said we were acting on intelligence.”

A police source told Reuters officers were seeking “some
form of viable chemical device” that could kill — a
conventional bomb laced with toxic material.

Both suspects — being held on suspicion of the commission,
preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism — have denied
any links with a terrorism plot through their lawyers.

Asan Rehman, a spokesman for a family that was arrested
from a neighbouring house but then freed, told Reuters the two
men in detention were brothers, were Muslims and of Bangladeshi
origin.

Neighbors in London’s Forest Gate, an ethnically diverse
area with a sizeable Muslim population, described the men as
friendly and “very religious.”

Police have said nothing suspicious was found in an initial
search of the house and that neighbors are not in danger.