Obsolete

In the early hours of the 2nd of June 2006, the home of the Kalam family in Forest Gate was raided by anti-terrorist police. Acting on intelligence which had more holes in it than Abdul Kahar's shoulder shortly would, searching for what was variously described as a chemical device, an explosive device designed to spray out cyanide, or a suicide vest with a similar function, they broke down the door, shot one of the brothers and beat Hanif, a next-door neighbour, around the head with the butt of a gun. Their ordeal however was from far over. Not only were they entirely innocent and the victims of a heavy-handed police operation, but they were shortly to find themselves at the centre of some of the most dishonest, sensationalised and disgraceful reporting to have appeared in the tabloid media for quite some time.

Today the Sun finally apologised to the Kalam family.

IN articles last summer following the arrest in Forest Gate of the Kalam brothers, we incorrectly reported that Abul Koyair had criminal convictions, that the brothers did not tell police where substantial cash found at their home had come from and that charges were brought over paedophile images found on Abdulkahar’s computer.
We also reported that there was an inquiry into allegations that the brothers had insulted and spat at soldiers outside their barracks.

In fact, no charges were brought over the computer, which was second hand, police were immediately informed of the cash savings and no evidence was found by the inquiry that the brothers had insulted or spat at soldiers.

We accept that the brothers are not involved in terrorism and apologise for the embarrassment caused.

Just to underline how important this apology is, here's where it's featured on the Sun's website:

All too late for the suffering the family went through not just because of a police mistake, but because the media, no doubt helpfully briefed by the police themselves, set out to smear them guilty. Victoria Brittain wrote this back in November:

Mr Kahar today is traumatised, struggling with lost confidence, sleeplessness, flashbacks and guilt for his mother's distress. Until June he was a cheerful young man working for Royal Mail, where he had been through a vetting procedure and signed the Official Secrets Act as a driver/collector of material from such places as banks and police stations. He was able to manage this workload despite being dyslexic.

To me, this is far more serious than the BBC making a mistake about the Queen which it almost instantly apologised for once they discovered it was wrong. As a result of the Sun's willingness to help counter the police's acute embarrassment, sell newspapers and believe the worst about anyone who either happens to have a long beard or brown skin, a family could quite easily have been broken apart. For it take over a year for them to accept that they were even in the slightest bit wrong about any of their stories concerning the brothers is not just unacceptable, it's the perfect example of how distant the media actually is from the people it's meant to represent, of how its power can be so easily abused. A liar recently described the Independent as "feral"; by that standard, the Sun is rabid.

Speaking of the Queen, there's no let up in the Sun's anger over the BBC's insult to our glorious monarch:

Dame Helen’s comments came as it emerged that the BBC KNEW clips apparently showing the Queen storming out of a picture session were wrong within hours of them being shown to journalists.
But it apologised only at noon on Thursday — 17 HOURS after learning the truth the evening before.

In a typical piece of Scum disinformation, it doesn't explain why the BBC took 17 hours to apologise. As the Guardian states:

It was agreed with the palace that a statement would not be put out until the following morning, but that left the BBC open to accusations it was milking the publicity before putting the record straight. Corporation insiders now admit they should have been quicker to alert newspapers and try to kill the story.

Lastly, the Scum saves its unrighteous anger for the speech delivered by Douglas Alexander, given in America, which touched on foreign policy:

Mr Brown insists he values the Special Relationship — yet actions speak louder than words.

Few are as close to him as his Trade Secretary Douglas Alexander. So why is this pipsqueak allowed to lecture the U.S. on its foreign policy?

There could barely be a more provocative act.

Here are some excerpts from Alexander's provocative lecture:

"In the 20th century a country's might was too often measured in what they could destroy. In the 21st century strength should be measured by what we can build together. And so we must form new alliances, based on common values, ones not just to protect us from the world, but ones which reach out to the world." He described this as "a new alliance of opportunity".

We need to demonstrate by our deeds, words and our actions that we are internationalist, not isolationist, multilateralist, not unilateralist, active and not passive, and driven by core values, consistently applied, not special interests."

"Given the interconnected nature of the challenges we face, I would argue that we have to simultaneously be fighting to end poverty, to secure trade justice and to tackle conflict and climate change, as well as working to defeat terrorism and ensure the preservation of our security."

Have you ever read such a stinging rebuke? I know I haven't. The Scum continues:

Especially so soon after the PM’s appalling decision to appoint Lord Malloch Brown as his minister for Africa, Asia and the UN.

This is a man who delighted in savaging America in his last job at the UN and who has no place in the British Government.

Just why is the Sun so disgusted by Lord Malloch Brown's appointment? Could it possibly be because in his "savaging" of America at the UN he stated that:

"Today on a very wide number of areas, from Lebanon and Afghanistan to Syria, Iran and the Palestinian issue, the US is constructively engaged with the UN," he said.
"But that is not well known or understood in part because much of the public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to the UN's loudest detractors such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. The UN's role is in effect a secret in Middle America."

Dare to suggest that a Murdoch-owned subsidiary might just be responsible for the way the United Nations is viewed in the US, and you can expect to have opprobrium heaped on top of you for the rest of your natural life.

The Scum in fact isn't advocating a special relationship - a relationship involves criticism, talking to each other, working out problems and coming to compromises - what the Sun wants amounts to a relationship beset by violence and intimidation, where we're forced to blindly follow everything that America ever does, no matter what the consequences are, either for us, or the world itself. It didn't used to be like this. Thatcher and Reagan used to have blazing rows and disagreed on a number of issues, but it didn't affect the partnership. It's only been under the neo-conservatism which Murdoch has embraced, which accepts no criticism and expects only loyalty, whatever the cost, that our influence over America has completely disappeared. After all that's happened in the last four years, you'd expect that we at the very least ought to take stock of what's gone wrong and why, but instead the Scum demands that nothing change. While Wade no longer has Kemp to bash, she's still got a Labour prime minister to bitch slap.

Labels: Forest Gate terror raid, Kalam family, Koyair brothers, Mark Malloch Brown, Scum-watch, Sun-watch

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Comparing and contrasting the ex-BNP bomber and the Koyairs.

In one of those more happy, not conspiratorial coincidences, the release of the second IPCC report in the police raid on the home of the Koyair brothers and their neighbours (PDF) has nicely complimented the guilty plea of Robert Cottage, a former BNP member, who has pleaded guilty to the possession of explosives.

When police raided his house on 28 September 2006 they discovered 21 types of chemicals which, when combined, could form explosives.

Miss Blackwell said they also uncovered a document called the Anarchy Cookbook, which detailed how to make different types of bombs.

Ball bearings - which the prosecution claim could be used as shrapnel for explosive devices - were also found, along with four air pistols.

After interviewing Mr Cottage, detectives raided Mr Jackson's home on 1 October and found a bow and arrow and two nuclear protection suits.

Up until now, the mass media has been almost silent on this discovery, which at the time was referred to by the local media, around the only part of the fourth estate apart from blogs that reported on the raid, as the biggest ever seizure of bomb-making materials from one home in the country.

Before we get into denouncing the double standards of media, knowing full well if it had been Muslims who had been found with such material instead of two white men that it may well have led the news agenda for a couple of days, Rachel makes a number of good points based on her own digging into the story. It simply seems that it passed the media by - if they had known about from the beginning, they would have made something of it. As it happened, the police also initially played down the raids, so it seems only the local media took any interest, and didn't pass it on to their colleagues in the national press.

The one thing that grates though is the fact that the police seem to have accepted that Cottage was not planning a terrorist attack, and only charged them under the ancient (1883) Explosive Substances Act. Cottage's claim that he believed civil war was coming, a belief similar to those held by extreme-right survivalist militias in the United States, and that he was keeping explosives ready for it, shouldn't be allowed to wash. You can't imagine Islamist extremists getting away with such an excuse in court, nor would the tabloids allow them to.

At least in the case of Cottage and his friend David Jackson, justice seems likely to be done. When it comes to the Koyair brothers, their family and their neighbours, they will go on waiting. While today's second IPCC report is not a whitewash, and is far more critical of the police operation in Forest Gate than Scotland Yard are admitting, as Martin Kettle points out, it still leaves a good few questions. The main one surrounds the intelligence that triggered the raid in the first place. The report says (image because the report doesn't allow text copying for some reason):

As the intelligence has only been provided on a confidential basis, unless it happens to be leaked, it seems we're destined to never know for sure just exactly what the police were expecting to find other than a "highly dangerous explosive device" or a "remote-controlled chemical bomb". The media reports at the time were similarly unsure of what it was the police were looking for. The Daily Mail and Times suggested it was a suicide vest that would also have sprayed out poison, the Sunday Express screamed "ANTHRAX TERROR BOMB HUNT", while the News of the Screws, in the same story that wrongly claimed that one of the brothers had shot the other, reported that it was an "explosive device designed to spray out deadly cyanide".

If the police had been willing to be truly open, they would have released the intelligence in full, with any details which could have identified the source censored. Instead we have to take the IPCC's word for it that the intelligence was both believable and so troubling that it necessitated a raid that was brutal in its execution. It's also worth considering this initial Grauniad report that suggested there had been two months of surveillance before the raid -- how in two months did they not realise that this was an ordinary family with nothing to hide who have since been treated abysmally?

There are also contradictions between the evidence given by the officer identified as hitting Hanif, one of the residents of the adjacent house to the one owned by the Koyair family, and his own account of what happened. Hanif contends that he was hit with the butt of the officer's gun as soon as the police entered the room where he had been sleeping -- the officer maintains that Hanif was failing to comply with directions, and he was afraid he was reaching for something under his bed. The officer in any case falls back on the excuse that he was operating in the face of "extreme threat", even though this was a raid carried out in the early hours of the morning, where all the occupants of both houses had been asleep until the police entered, and that he was operating in the property that was raided only because it was believed that both were connected. While the house was owned by the Koyair family, there was no way to gain access to one from inside the other.

The report does mention the leaking and coverage of the raid, but as commenting on such things is outside its remit, doesn't draw any conclusions. It would have been nice for the IPCC to investigate where the leaking came from, but that seems to have been too much to expect. Instead, we have to draw our conclusions, and judging by the way the Murdoch press in particular set out to "get" the Koyair brothers, suggesting that one of them had a criminal record when he did not, that they had a suspiciously large amount money in cash, even though the family had explained they had it because of their religious belief in not using bank accounts which accrue interest, and then finally, and most damagingly, that one of the brother's computers and phones' had child pornography on. When the CPS failed to prosecute and it emerged there were a lot of questions over just how the pornography appeared on the devices, the Sun still persisted, with an officer telling it that "the images were there and a jury should have decided how they get there".

No one disputes that if there is a clear case of public safety being threatened, then such disruptive and potentially personally destructive raids have to take place regardless of such concerns. However, as the report sets out, the police made little to no allowances for the intelligence being incorrect, and the officers acted throughout almost as if they were above the law. The way in which the media were leaked such defamatory and completely inaccurate information shows the contempt in which the men were treated. They were guilty until proved innocent, and it seems that the police were so determined to find something to use against them that they may have even turned to planting child pornography, something which cannot be proved, but in the circumstances of the operation cannot be easily dismissed as being laughable or conspiratorial.

One can only hope that the recommendations of the report are taken on board. That the events of the last couple of weeks seem to have repeated history, only this time with the Home Office coming under suspicion for the leaking, and with a number of the men accused of terrorism being charged, certainly doesn't inspire confidence in either the police or government to restrain themselves when dealing with such sensitive operations.

Labels: BNP, David Jackson, Forest Gate terror raid, IPCC, Koyair brothers, Robert Cottage