Questions for the London Police (seems more like the 911 inquiry)

[cthrumatrix]

This is a recent BBC news report of what the police now suspect were the terrorists responsible for the four bombings in London on 7 July. I have added my comments and questions below each bullet point. As I hope you will agree, the scenario conceived by the police is a tissue of weak, circumstantial evidence and ad hoc inference that is being quickly turned by the British media into a myth similar to the official account of events on 9/11.
------------------------------------
The police have revealed important developments in the hunt for those responsible for the London bomb attacks.

# All four suspects were British nationals of Pakistani descent. Three of the four were from West Yorkshire.

As the police had not found their bodies, this is inference that can only be based upon visual identification and tracking of CCTV images. It is not based on forensic evidence. How can the police know the men were British? Have their passports been found? No. Is a Pakistani who has British nationality distinguishable from a Pakistani with Pakistani nationality? Obviously not! Just because they may have been living in the West Yorkshire does not ipso facto mean that they were British. All it indicates is that they were living in Britain. If the police wanted to find out who these men were, why have they not released footage to the media so that people can come forward to identify them? This is common practice for the police in the solution of crimes. There is even a TV program that specializes in solving this type of crime where the suspect is recorded on CCTV. So why is it not being done here in the most important mass murder case British police have ever faced? Could it be that they don´t want these men identified because they would soon be discovered to be innocent? That´s the only conclusion one can draw from not allowing the public to see what these men looked like?

# All four were captured on CCTV at King´s Cross station, wearing rucksacks, shortly before 0830 BST on the morning of the attacks. The footage was found on Monday night.

So everyone wearing rucksacks (and many people do) are now suspected as terrorists, are they? LOL!

# One suspect was reported missing by his family. Some of his belongings were found on the bombed Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square.

So what? All this indicates is that a family reported a relative missing whose belongings were found on the bus. There is nothing odd about that. It does not suggest he was a terrorist.

# Property linked to a second man was found at the scene of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street Tube bomb.

So what? All this indicates is that one of the men seen on CCTV died at this Tube station. It does not indicate he was a bomber. It is a non sequitur to say so.

# Items belonging to a third suspect were found at the site of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street and Edgware Road Tube bombs.

So what? This does not necessarily mean that these items belonged to the four men seen on CCTV.

# It is very likely the three men whose belongings were found at the bomb scenes are dead, police sources say.

Well, of course! What would be the point of planting belongings at the scene of the crime?

# Questions remain over the identity of the fourth bomber. Police do not know if he was killed at King´s Cross or has fled.

Questions remain over the identity of ALL the bombers! Their bodies have not been found yet (perhaps never will be identified as such) and the CCTV images are merely circumstantial evidence that may turn out to be a wrong lead.

# One man has been arrested in West Yorkshire and is being questioned in London. He is believed to be related to one of the suspected bombers.

This identification is based upon what the police found in one of the ´belongings.´ As the police admit they have not found the bodies of these four men, how can they know these belongings belonged to a terrorist? It could have belonged to another innocent man who died at the scene, whose relative is now being questioned.

# Police have searched the homes of three of the four suspects in West Yorkshire.

How do the police know these were the homes of the terrorists when they cannot be sure the belongings were those of the bombers because they have not found their bodies?!

# Six search warrants were executed in the Leeds area on Tuesday. A controlled explosion was carried out in the Burley area.

The controlled explosion found nothing suspicious.

# A "significant amount" of explosive material was found at an address in Leeds.

If the address was obtained from the belongings, this still does not link the explosives found to the men seen on CCTV, who could have been innocent Moslems. All it proves is that the belongings were those of a terrorist.

# The men boarded a Thameslink train from Luton to King´s Cross.

So what? Thousands of people do this every day. So how does this make them suspect terrorists?

# Two cars in Luton, one of which had explosives in it, are connected to the inquiry. Police spent 14 hours dealing with explosive devices found in one car at Luton Central railway station.

Have the police proved that the four men seen on CCTV owned these cars? No. All it indicates is that one at least belonged to a terrorist.

# Police sources have told the BBC they had not recovered any timing devices from the bomb scenes, possibly indicating that detonation was by hand.

Well, at least THAT is a logical conclusion!

# Counter-terrorism officials believe the group of four would have had an outside "controlling hand" who could still be at large.

Of course! No one believes four men without technical expertise and training could design their own bombs.

# It is thought the cars were hired by the suspects in West Yorkshire before being driven to Luton.

If by ´suspects´, the police mean the men they picked out on CCTV, then that is pure speculation. The police have not proved that the men seen on CCTV drove these cars found with explosives. Obviously, these cars were probably used by the terrorists. But that´s all we know for sure.

# More than 1,000 calls have been made by the public to an anti-terrorist hotline. Police have studied 2,500 CCTV tapes.

So why have the police not released images of the ones showing these four men if they are so eager to identify them? Remember the Pentagon gas station CCTV tapes with missing frames that would have identified what type of plane flew into the Pentagon? Only one word comes to mind when investigating authorites do not release vital evidence to the public supporting their conclusions: cover-up.

---------------------------------------------------------------
the above post was taken from another website... I personally have no knowledge if the above claims are true http://godlikeproductions.com/bbs/message.php?message=126695&mpage=1&topic=3&showdate=7/13/05

can people in the UK validate the above findings/questions

[malaise]

1. I must say

I found all this identification stuff with no bodies rather strange? Shades of 9/11 - why would they take credit cards, etc if they knew they were going to die?
I am very skeptical about info from the establishment these days. I no longer know what to believe about a damn thing.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I'm old and never in my life before have I so distrusted our government.

My first reaction yesterday, like that of 9/11, was how can they so quickly and postitively find identification of 'terrorists' and not be able to even list the names of those killed in an attack? Why don't they find ids, credit cards, or other documents from the citizens who died?

[cthrumatrix]

4. you mean like the 911 hjakers in the newspaper 36 hrs later

when they were not on any passenger lists ... and supposedly had to use fake id's... and those weren't on a passenger list as well.

[whatever4]

2. One of my first criticisms

Was how long it took them to identity images that surely must have been caught by the many cameras they use in public. I can see they've found the images now. It took a while. Makes one wonder what good all the public spying really does, doesn't it?

Think the watchers might have been watching some cleavage or rear end images instead of watching for terrorists? Naw, never happen...

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Seeing 4 men with rucksacks is one thing

but on its own, it's not enough. King's Cross is a major transport intersection, and many people go through there with rucksacks (I have, possibly in company with others at times). When you can match up one of these men at 8:30am with the man who died on the bus at about 9:40 (whose family reported him missing, so I guess they got a photo of him to London at some stage), then you might start to think they're your most likely suspects (why wait over an hour to catch a bus?). If they have belongings from 2 other men from Leeds, all Muslim (sorry, but that was always the main theory), close to the explosions, among the 50 or so dead, then you've got a pattern.

In some ways, I'm glad to think that they can't get to individuals that quickly, and only with a big effort. It means the Big Brother society hasn't quite got here yet.

[whatever4]

7. I see your point, but I disagree

In fact friend, I completely disagree.

The ONLY thing that system is good for is picking out individuals. The only thing it can do quickly and efficiently is target a person out of a group. Going the other way creates massive database searches, cartesian joins of groups of matching data, an insane attempt to match "terrorists" to whoever is seen in the crowd. Get any hits? Get them quickly enough to do anything? Not likely. Not unless the list of "suspects" is very small.

Individualized.

It's ONLY good for targeting the individual. Make no mistake. That's just how it works, and in practice, has been working. Using it to identify crowds has gotten few and little results, from what I have seen. They have used this type of spying on crowds at big ball games here in the states, with nothing to show for it.

Nothing but a fat database to play with.

And you have no idea how easy it is to f up a database.

It's a one-way ticket. It's only good for finding individuals in a crowd, does not work well the other way around. Does NOTHING for prevention, only maybe helps in after-the-fact investigations.

Safeguards us not at all. Guards THEM from dangerous INDIVIDUALS.

How safe does that leave us? It completely depends on who is labeled as "dangerous" now, doesn't it?

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I'm not quite sure what you're saying

I meant that it's still difficult for them to take the general pictures of crowds and focus quickly onto individuals they're looking for.

What all the CCTV does do is allow them to get pictures of people who are on their own, and who they think has done something wrong, in an area they know (petty criminals, etc.). As you say, after-the-fact investigations. But they can't do a 'track-this-person's-movements-over-a-long-time' investigation, without huge manpower, which means that it's not some covert intelligence service operation.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. 'godlikeproductions' points are, on the whole, irrelevant or wrong

# All four suspects were British nationals of Pakistani descent. Three of the four were from West Yorkshire.

As the police had not found their bodies, this is inference that can only be based upon visual identification and tracking of CCTV images. It is not based on forensic evidence. How can the police know the men were British? Have their passports been found? No. Is a Pakistani who has British nationality distinguishable from a Pakistani with Pakistani nationality? Obviously not! Just because they may have been living in the West Yorkshire does not ipso facto mean that they were British. All it indicates is that they were living in Britain. If the police wanted to find out who these men were, why have they not released footage to the media so that people can come forward to identify them? This is common practice for the police in the solution of crimes. There is even a TV program that specializes in solving this type of crime where the suspect is recorded on CCTV. So why is it not being done here in the most important mass murder case British police have ever faced? Could it be that they don´t want these men identified because they would soon be discovered to be innocent? That´s the only conclusion one can draw from not allowing the public to see what these men looked like?

The 3 men have been named (and today, the police say they now know the 4th person, but haven't released his name). One man has been identified by 'forensic evidence', at Aldgate. Driving licences and bank cards have been found, which would be enough to get their addresses, and confirm who there were, including their British nationality. They don't need the public to identify them.

# All four were captured on CCTV at King´s Cross station, wearing rucksacks, shortly before 0830 BST on the morning of the attacks. The footage was found on Monday night.

So everyone wearing rucksacks (and many people do) are now suspected as terrorists, are they? LOL!

No; he's just being silly here. A group of 4 people, who have driven/taken trains from Leeds to London, with rucksacks, whose posessions are then found at 3 different explosions within little more than an hour, are suspects.

# One suspect was reported missing by his family. Some of his belongings were found on the bombed Number 30 bus in Tavistock Square.

So what? All this indicates is that a family reported a relative missing whose belongings were found on the bus. There is nothing odd about that. It does not suggest he was a terrorist.

# Property linked to a second man was found at the scene of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street Tube bomb.

So what? All this indicates is that one of the men seen on CCTV died at this Tube station. It does not indicate he was a bomber. It is a non sequitur to say so.

# Items belonging to a third suspect were found at the site of the Aldgate/Liverpool Street and Edgware Road Tube bombs.

So what? This does not necessarily mean that these items belonged to the four men seen on CCTV.

When you know a group of men, seen together, and one of them identified (if the family reported him as missing, the police will have got a photo, which proves it's him on the CCTV), minutes before the 3 tube explosions, have left belongings on 2 of the trains and the bus, that's more than a coincidence. You don't travel to London from Leeds and then split up (for no apparent reason, other than the bombing), and turn up by chance right next to each bomb. This fool seems to think that every sentence the BBC used has to mean the identified men were the bombers. It's when you take them together that the evidence appears.

# It is very likely the three men whose belongings were found at the bomb scenes are dead, police sources say.

Well, of course! What would be the point of planting belongings at the scene of the crime?

I can see a reason for planting your belongings - to make the police think you've died, so that they don't do a manhunt for you. Maybe the guy is being sarcastic, and is trying to say this; but the police still say 'likely'. They are not ruling out that some of the men are still alive.

Most of the rest of it consists of this fool saying that the police haven't proved these men are the bombers; yes, that's why they say 'suspected' all over the place. This is no cover-up; it's an investigation in progress, where the police have credible theories and evidence, and have acted on them. It's enough to allow the arrest of a relation, but he hasn't been charged yet. This is how the police work. Has the 'godlike' fool not even read a detective novel, or watched a police series?