Police questioned three North African men on Wednesday after an officer was slain during an anti-terrorism raid linked to the recent discovery of the deadly poison ricin in London.
The men were arrested during Tuesday’s swoop in the northern city of Manchester during which detective constable Stephen Oake (40) was fatally stabbed in the chest and two others injured by the suspect with the knife.
Police said they found no ”dangerous material” during the raid by the unarmed officers. Manchester police were questioning one of the three North African men as part of a murder investigation and were to hand another over to immigration authorities. London’s Metropolitan police were questioning another in connection with the January 5 discovery of ricin in a north London apartment.
All three men, who are aged 23, 27 and 29, were being held under anti-terrorism laws, London’s Metropolitan police said. British authorities have been warning for months that the country faces a serious threat of terrorist attack, but the killing of the officer in Manchester was the first reported fatality in Britain linked to terrorism since the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.
Prime Minister Tony Blair described the stabbing as ”an appalling tragedy and wicked in the extreme,” and the killing dominated news headlines. Police also said an inquiry would be launched into the handling of the raid by the unarmed officers during which one of the suspects broke free after it began and stabbed three policemen.
”It’s been a very traumatic few hours,” Manchester’s Chief Constable Michael Todd said of the raid in the city’s northern Crumpsall district.
Todd told the British Broadcasting Corporation that unarmed officers from the Greater Manchester police had been looking for one man in connection with the ricin discovery in London. Ricin is derived from the castor bean plant and is one of the world’s deadliest toxins. It has been linked in the past to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terror network and Iraq.
The officers arrested the three men in the apartment, and were joined by members of the Special Branch intelligence-gathering unit, including Oake, and a member of the Metropolitan police’s anti-terrorism branch, none of whom wore body armor. No officers were armed.
Todd said that about one hour after the arrests, one of the suspects broke free from an officer’s grasp and ran into the kitchen, where he grabbed a large knife. He stabbed three officers as they tried to restrain him.
Oake, a father of three, died at Manchester General Hospital after receiving emergency treatment at the scene. The two other stabbed officers underwent surgery but their injuries were not life-threatening. A fourth officer had a broken ankle, while a fifth had a superficial leg injury.
Two of the three North African men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the third was detained under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, the new legislation brought in after September 11. Under British law, the men can be held for a maximum of 72 hours and must then either be released or charged with a crime.
Todd said police found no traces of ricin in the Manchester
apartment. ”We have nothing at the moment which says there is any dangerous material on the premises,” he said.
In a separate case, four men, described as North African in origin, appeared in a London court on Monday charged with chemical weapons and terrorism offenses after officers found traces of ricin in the Wood Green district of north London apartment on January 5.
The British government has issued several general warnings that Britain could be the target of terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001.
Blair told Parliament last month that ”barely a day goes by” without some new piece of intelligence warning of threats to British interests.
In November, the government issued — and then hurriedly withdrew — a statement warning that al-Qaeda might be prepared to use a radiological device known as a ”dirty bomb,” or some kind of poison gas. It was replaced with a more general warning of terrorist threats.
Fatal attacks on police officers in Britain are increasing. Between 1980 and 1989, a total of 30 officers were killed in the line of duty, according to the National Police Federation. Between 1990 and 1999, 18 officers were slain and from 2000 to now, seven officers were killed. Some fatalities were blamed on Irish Republican Army attacks.
Usually officers do not carry firearms. However, in inner-city areas they sometimes wear special stab-proof protective clothing. – Sapa-AP