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July 24, 2006

UK: Forest Gate Muslims Now Living In The Holiday Inn

Another story from yesterday, from the Mail on Sunday, reports on what has happened to the two Muslim brothers (pictured) whose home was raided on June 2. During Operation Volga, the address in Lansdown Road in Forest Gate, east London, was raided by at least 250 officers. Intelligence reports had suggested a chemical weapon was in the house. In the process, one of the two Bangladeshi-origin brothers was shot in the shoulder. No weapon was recovered.

The two brothers, Mohammed Abdul Kahar, aged 23, and his younger brother Abul Koyair, aged 20, were later released and given an apology by the Metropolitan Police. There is talk of a figure of half a million pounds ($922,717) in compensation being offered.

On June 13, after their release from police custody and interrogation, the two brothers gave a press conference. Mohammed Abdul Kahar was describing what had happened when the officers had burst into their home. He would also quote the four-letter language which was used by the officer who shot him. Kahar was talking of how he encountered the officer on the stairs, and how he had been shot without warning.

At the same time, on Radio Five Live, the BBC's "phone-in talk radio", Victoria Derbyshire was hosting a discussion about how presenters of BBC radio shows had been admonished for allowing on-air swearing to take place.

Meanwhile, at the press conference, Mohammed Abdul Kahar said: "He looked at me straight away and shot. We had eye contact and he shot straight away"

At this moment, Victoria Derbyshire had just announced that she was going to quickly leave the topic of on-air swearing to take her listeners to a live feed from the press conference. And as soon as she had done so, her listeners heard Mohammed Abdul Kahar say: "He was saying 'Just shut the fuck up, stay there, stay there'."

The brothers were subsequently shown on television going to their house and looking ruefully at it, but not going in. They claimed that they were too upset to go back inside.

To be fair, their experience would have traumatised anyone. After being shot, Kahar said that he had been dragged out into the road and placed on the sidewalk. The bullet had passed clean through his shoulder, but all he was offered by means of first aid was a tissue. After a brief stay in hospital he was sent to be interrogated.

The drama had also traumatised Tommy, their family cat. The 10-year old black tomcat was so unnerved by the experience of the police raid that he fled, and has not been seen since.

But even though they experienced a trauma, and appear to have lost their cat in the process, it is bizarre that since June 17th, the Metropolitan Police has been paying for the entire family to live in a luxury hotel.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar is understandably emotionally distraught at the events of June 2. He states: "I still get nightmares and flashbacks. This has ruined not just my life but my whole family's." Both he and his mother are in receipt of counseling.

Apparently the police have torn apart the inside of the address in Lansdown Road, and repairs, which will be undertaken by the Metropolitan Police, will take weeks, possibly months, to complete.

So for the past 37 days, the entire family - the two brothers, their mother and father, two sisters and two brothers - have been given accommodation at the luxurious Holiday Inn Hotel at King's Cross in north London. I have visited the Holiday Inn at Swiss Cottage and the rooms there are spacious.

But one room for one night at the Holiday Inn costs 114 pounds ($210). So far the bill has come to more than 20,000 pounds ($36,908), and will have 570 pounds ($1,051) per day continually added, states the Mail on Sunday.

That does not include the cost of meals, phone calls or laundry.

When the Mail on Sunday tried to get an explanation as to why the family were not provided with a rented house nearer to their normal home in east London, Scotland Yard was "at a loss to explain".

As well as being of considerably less financial burden to the tax-payer, who funds the Metropolitan Police, a self-contained house would at least allow the traumatised family to have some semblance of a "normal" family life.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 24, 2006 8:38 PM

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