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An intense manhunt for four men suspected of trying to bomb London's subway last week has netted one of them. Early in the day police arrested four people in the British Midlands, including that suspect. And late this evening they said a raid south of London had resulted in the arrests of three more people. NPR's Anthony Kuhn has the latest from London.
ANTHONY KUHN reporting:
The arrests can after anti-terrorists and local police raided two homes early this morning in Birmingham. Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police's Anti-Terrorism Unit, described the action.
Mr. PETER CLARKE (Metropolitan Police): In the early hours of today, four men were arrested in Birmingham. I can confirm that one of the men, who has been arrested in Birmingham, is Yasin Hassan Omar. He was alone in the house at the time of his arrest. During the course of that arrest, officers did find it necessary to use a TASER weapon to control him. This, of course, is an important development in the investigation.
KUHN: Clarke also released a new picture of another man suspected of an attempted bomb attack on the Shepherd's Bush Underground station in west London. According to the government, Omar is a British resident and Somali national who came with his family to Britain as a refugee in 1992. Police say he's suspected of trying to set off a bomb in central London's Warren Street station last Thursday. Since then hundreds of intelligence agents and detectives have been pouring over evidence and scouring the country around the clock. Former Metropolitan Police Officer John O'Connor said that with their images all over the media, the suspects would now have to be lying low.
Mr. JOHN O'CONNOR (Former Metropolitan Police Officer): They've been on the run now for six days. It's doubtful whether they've been out and about. It's more than likely that they've been probably in different safe houses. That's the way that I would see it. So it seems to me that this is a natural consequence, and I would expect the others to be scooped up sooner rather than later.
KUHN: Police may have found a safe house in a government housing project in south London's Stockwell area. They arrested three women suspected of harboring a fugitive. Police say the arrests were connected to last week's attempted bombings.
Clarke, meanwhile, said police have taken Omar to London for questioning. They'll be trying to find out the whereabouts of his suspected accomplices in the hope of preventing further attacks. Prime Minister Tony Blair praised the police's quick work.
Prime Minister TONY BLAIR (Great Britain): Over these past couple of weeks the police have performed in an astonishing way. I mean, their dedication, their commitment, their energy in getting after the people responsible has been remarkable.
KUHN: The police are still holding four men arrested in London last week. A fifth was released today without charges. Police have had to get warrants to extend some of the suspects' terms of detention without charges, and this has become a controversial issue. The government wants to extend the maximum period that police can detain suspected terrorists for without charging them from two weeks to three months. But opposition parties have expressed concerns about the possible erosion of civil liberties. Metropolitan Police Chief Ian Blair argued today that two weeks are not enough to crack such a case.
Mr. IAN BLAIR (Metropolitan Police Chief): Fourteen days does not allow for some of the things that we have to do in these kind of investigations. You've got encrypted computers. It takes a long time. The kind of material that we were recovering and explosives--I mean, it took us seven days to get into the house in Leeds because it was so volatile.
KUHN: Investigators continued their inquiry today into the death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes. Police mistook him for a suicide bomber and shot him to death on Friday, triggering protests in Brazil and London. Nick Hardwick is the chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the body investigating the shooting. He emphasized his organization's independence.
Mr. NICK HARDWICK (Chairman, Independent Police Complaints Commission): We need to know exactly what happened, and we're starting from a completely blank sheet of paper. I'm not accepting what we're reading in the media, what the police or anybody else is telling us. I won't believe anything till our own independent investigators have established it, till we've established what we know to be true.
KUHN: Menezes' body is being returned to Brazil today for a funeral. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, London.
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