NYT : Britain’s Antiterror Officer Resigns

Britain’s Antiterror Officer Resigns

By SARAH LYALL | April 9, 2009

LONDON — Britain’s most powerful counter-terrorism police officer resigned on Thursday, a day after being photographed holding a document marked “SECRET” that outlined details of a major anti-terrorism operation. The resignation is the latest embarrassment for the Metropolitan Police Service, which is also being investigated for its handling of, and possible responsibility for, the death of a passer-by during protests at last week’s G20 meetings.

Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick of the Metropolitan Police Department was photographed arriving at No 10 Downing Street on Wednesday carrying a document that outlined details of a major antiterrorism operation.

Both cases hinged on photographs and video footage taken by reporters and members of the public and disseminated by the news media and on the Internet.

The resignation of the counter-terrorism officer, Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, came after he was seen carrying a document titled, “Briefing Note: Operation PATHWAY,” while on his way to a Downing Street security briefing. Referring to the Qaeda terror network, the document sketched out a plan to arrest 11 people at seven addresses in northwest England as part of a “a security service led investigation into suspected AQ driven attack planning within the UK.”

Because of the disclosure, captured by photographers with telephoto lenses, anti-terrorism officers had to carry out the operation many hours earlier than planned, the police said. Hundreds of officers took part in raids around Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire on Wednesday afternoon. They detained 12 people on suspicion of being part of what Prime Minister Gordon Brown called “a very big terrorist plot” that the security services had been “following for some time.”

The British news media reported that the group had been planning attacks this weekend on targets like a shopping center in downtown Manchester. But Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, told reporters that “there is no particular threat against any particular location.”

Ten of the people in custody are Pakistani nationals, and one is British-born, Mr. Fahy said. None has been formally charged. Mr. Quick said in a statement: “I deeply regret the disruption caused to colleagues undertaking the operation.”

Meanwhile, pressure mounted on the Metropolitan Police Service to explain itself over the death of Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper vendor who suffered a fatal heart attack on April 1, during protests at the G20 meetings. The police originally said that they had had no contact with Mr. Tomlinson, who had been trying to get home and was not a protester, until they gave him emergency medical treatment and put him in an ambulance after he fell ill.

But a number of witnesses have since come forward to the news media to contradict what the police said, backing up their claims with photographs and video footage of the incident, in London’s financial district. One piece of footage, whose existence was first reported in The Guardian newspaper, showed Mr. Tomlinson apparently being hit in the back from behind with a baton wielded by a police officer in riot gear.

That footage was taken by a 38-year-old investment manager from New York, who said he had attended the protests out of curiosity.

A freelance photographer, Anna Branthwaite, told the newspaper that she had witnessed Mr. Tomlinson being attacked with no provocation. She said that after rushing him and pushing him to the ground, a police officer “hit him twice with a baton” as he lay there and then “picked him up from the back, continued to walk or charge with him, and threw him.” He staggered down the street and then collapsed soon afterwards.

After a barrage of complaints and the emergence of the new evidence, the police department said late on Thursday that it had suspended the officer in question, whose face was obscured by a balaclava in the video and whose name has not been released. Officials are also holding an inquest into Mr. Tomlinson’s death.

The Independent Police Complaint Commission, which originally said it would oversee a police investigation of the incident, changed its mind earlier this week, saying it would conduct the investigation itself. It also said that, armed with the new evidence, it had widened its inquiry to “investigate the alleged assault by police on Ian Tomlinson shortly before his death” and to “look into whether that contact may have contributed to his death.”

The incident undermines confidence in accountability at the police department, whose image has never fully recovered from the death, in 2005, of Jean Charles de Menezes. Mr. de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, was fatally shot by the police on the subway during a period of high tension after a series of suicide bombs on London’s transportation system killed 52 commuters. The police originally claimed that Mr. de Menezes had refused to stop when challenged, behaved strangely and led them on a chase through the subway system — all of which later proved false.

The police explained that they had confused Mr. de Menezes with a potential terrorist suspect who lived in the same apartment building as him.

Much of the photographic and video evidence gathered by the public in the Tomlinson case has been disseminated on the Web, as has the sensitive document inadvertently revealed by Mr. Quick, the now-former anti-terrorism official.

Mr. Quick’s mistake caused consternation at the highest levels of government. Informed on Wednesday that The Evening Standard planned to publish a clear photograph of the document that night, the Ministry of Defense quickly issued a so-called D- notice, which restricts publication of sensitive documents relating to national security. But it was too late: the information had already gone out over the Internet. On Thursday, The Standard published its photograph, albeit with several key details — apparently the names of anti-terrorism officers involved in the operation — blacked out. Other newspapers posted the photograph on their Web sites. [link to photo at the Guardian]

Boris Johnson, mayor of London and chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said that the disclosure of the memo had been “extremely unfortunate.”

He added: “an operation that was very, very sensitive and important to counterterrorism, for rounding up terrorists, had been potentially compromised and there was a real difficulty there.” He said that John Yates, another assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Department, would replace Mr. Quick as its head of counter-terrorism.