Police defend stun gun use

Friday, 29 July 2005 12:00 AM

West Midlands police have defended the use of a stun gun on a suspected suicide bomber after the Metropolitan police commissioner said it was an "incredible risk".

Sir Ian Blair said he was surprised officers in Birmingham used a Taser gun to arrest Yassin Hassan Omar, a prime suspect in the failed London bombings last week.

"It was an incredible risk to use a Taser on a suicide bomber because the Taser itself could set it off and that is not the policy," he told a BBC TV debate last night.

"I can't imagine how that was used. We use Tasers in London regularly but a Taser sends electric currents into the body of somebody. If there is a bomb on that body, then the bomb can go off."

His apparent criticism comes as the pressure increases on the Met in the wake of the shooting of Charles de Menezes in London last Friday.

Officers mistook the Brazilian for a suicide bomber and shot him dead at Stockwell underground station. It was subsequently confirmed he had no connection with the London bombings.

Mr De Menezes, for whom a memorial service is being held at Westminster Cathedral today, was the first casualty of the Met's new guidelines on its 'shoot-to-kill' policy, which was introduced six months after the September 11th attacks.

Codenamed Operation Kratos, it advises police to shoot suspects in the body, but changes introduced to deal with the new threat of suicide bombers advise them to shoot at the suspect's head in case they are carrying a bomb.

Questions have been raised about the validity of this new policy, and last night Sir Ian, while expressing his regret at Mr De Menezes' death, was again forced onto the defensive.

"Despite everything that's been said, there is only one way to stop a suicide bomber, which is to kill that person," he said.

He added: "Anything else that happens - unless you can persuade them in an open space to undress - everything else allows the shot to go home but the bomb to go off."

Today's statement from West Midlands police, who arrested failed bomber Mr Omar in a dawn raid on Wednesday, will only add to the debate.

"Every situation in which firearms are deployed is unique. The shooting of Mr De Menezes in London and the arrest of Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham may appear similar but they were separate incidents," it said.

"The information and intelligence would have been different, the threat levels to officers and the public was different."

The statement added that its use of the stun gun would, like the shooting of Mr De Menezes, be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

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