Anti-terrorist cops land 'egg pasta' on their faces after raiding wrong house!

25 April 2007

EXCLUSIVE by Ted Jeory



ANTI-TERRORISM cops ended up with 'egg pasta' on their faces when they raided the wrong home in the hunt for a Muslim firebrand.

They swooped at dawn on a house in the Shadwell district of London's East End.

But all they found were a terrified Italian couple... and their cat.

Police searched the house for five hours before finally apologising and leaving at 10am on April 24.

The flawed raid was part of a London-wide operation in which six men, including radical Jamaican-born preacher Omar Brooks, were arrested over allegations of 'inciting terrorism.'

It later emerged police intelligence had been faulty and they had raided the wrong property.

It was another 45 minutes before detectives finally found the man they were looking for, at a house in Manor Park seven miles away!

Scotland Yard later claimed he had once 'owned or occupied' the property in Shadwell and still stored belongings in the garden shed.

"We apologise for the inconvenience," said a red-faced Yard spokesman. "Our actions were in good faith." Any damage would be repaired free, he added.

Neighbours in the quiet street woken at 5am by the fumbled raid said the quiet Italian couple had been living in the leased house for at least five weeks, after it had been empty 'for ages'.

One elderly next-door-neighbour told the Advertiser: "The young lad living there told me he was convalescing from an operation."

Police thought the house was owned, rented or occupied by the man they were looking for.

Officers burst in only when there was no reply. They spoke to the couple and realised the man they wanted was not living there.

Five others apart from Omar Brooks, who is also known as Abu Izzadeen, are being held at high security Paddington Green police station.

They are thought to include Sulayman Keeler, 35, formerly known as Simon Keeler, from the East End.

All six are understood to be linked to the outlawed Al Ghurabaa group, which attacked Bethnal Green MP George Galloway just before he won his seat in the 2005 General Election and also 'hijacked' a Tower Hamlets council elections hustings last year.

The arrests were in connection with speeches made at the Central London Mosque in Regent's Park in 2004.