A 52-year-old Ethiopian refugee detained for six days in connection with the London bombings claimed in an interview published on Thursday that British police beat and humiliated him as he was arrested.
Girma Belay, a Christian who has lived in London for 12 years, was arrested on July 22, a day after a failed bomb attack on the city which attempted to repeat the carnage of two weeks earlier, when four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 others.
Belay told The Guardian newspaper that he was in a friend’s apartment in Stockwell, an area of south London where police have made a string of arrests linked to the attacks, when officers burst in.
He was forced to lie on the floor with a gun aimed at him before being ordered to strip naked, at which point police pointed at his genitals and mocked him, Belay said.
”I was completely naked and then one guy — I will never forget him, he was not in uniform — he started punching me,” he told the paper.
”I was held against the wall, I was naked. I kept asking, ‘Why is he hitting me?’ and he said ‘shut up’ and punched me again. He punched and kicked me like he was a boxer training on his bag.
”Then someone intervened and the punching stopped.”
Belay was held at London’s high security Paddington Green police station for six days of questioning before being released, with one officer telling him ”Sorry mate — wrong place, wrong time,” the paper said.
The Ethiopian now suffers flashbacks and is seeking a formal apology from police, he said. – Sapa-AFP