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Police today described how two officers on patrol may have foiled a mass-casualty al Qaeda attack on London.
This CCTV image shows them moments before they stepped in to question a man filming the crowds at Liverpool Street Station on his mobile phone.
The Algerian national was stopped because of his suspicious behaviour including attempts to hide his filming. Initially questioned on immigration offences, the man was later arrested under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of collecting information to commit an act of terrorism.
Police today released the image and details of the operation for the first time following criticism of officers for questioning a photographer in the Square Mile.
Anti-terrorist detectives and the security services believe the Algerian suspect, who has not been named, was carrying out "hostile reconnaissance" on possible terror targets in London.
The man, who is in his forties, filmed four main locations: Camden Town, Mornington Crescent and Oxford Circus Tube stations and the Broadgate and Liverpool Street Station.
The suspect and his brother were arrested in July last year with a third man, all of whom shared a one-bedroom flat in Brent.
Over a three-day period in July the main suspect filmed four lengthy clips on a Nokia N95 phone. The footage included detailed images of CCTV cameras, Tube station lifts and the entrances and exits at stations.
At one point he is overheard to say: "There's cameras there, there is cameras everywhere."
The two brothers were both charged with fraud offences and jailed for a total of four and a half years and recommended for deportation. Their arrest sparked a major terrorist investigation. Detectives found links with North African extremist groups but were unable to find direct links to a terror group.
The two men had been in Britain for 10 years and had arrived under false identities carrying French and Italian passports. The investigation uncovered evidence of multiple fraud totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds. The men are suspected of channelling cash back to groups in North Africa.
Detectives believe one possibility is that they were a fundraising group whose last mission before returning home was to carry out a reconnaissance for a terror mission.
Detective Superintendent Chris Greany, the head of counter terrorism in the City of London, said today: "We do not want to go down the road of stopping people taking pictures but there has to be a balance. We will get it wrong sometimes and we will say sorry."
The Algerians have been deported since their conviction. The Crown Prosecution Service decided a terror sentence would not exceed that already given to them for the fraud offences.
Reader views (16)
You lot would moan if the sun shone.
I'm glad they're gone and well done to the police.
- Anon, London, 16/12/2009 11:04
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These 'terrorists' were jailed for credit card fraud and then deported. S'funny how this story has surfaced now, at a time when the City of London police have been shown up for pointlessly harrassing law-abiding photographers on several occasions in the past week. Must be a coincidence.
- Leytonstoner, London, 15/12/2009 22:06
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Hint to al-Qaeda, you don't need to do photo-reconnaisance at our stations as Network Rail have done it for you: go to the National Rail website and look for "Stations made easy".
- Roy, England, 15/12/2009 17:10
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Guessing now they have been deported they will have to buy a new French and Italian passport so the wander back in.
- Lloyd, Cambridge, 15/12/2009 16:55
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@S-M Hearmon
I agree, but why do we have to waste taxpayers money keeping these people expensively in jail? Why don't we just deport them immediately?
- John Bull, Londonistan, UK, 15/12/2009 16:37
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Why are there no congratulations to the Police? Anyone actually recall just how barbaric Algerian Islamists were during their campaign in Algeria. These people were here illegally and commiting criminal acts ... almost certainly terrorists. But lets bash the police instead.
- Gazza, London,England, 15/12/2009 16:17
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There's a huge difference between someone photographing tourist sites (and being able to demonstrate that they are tourist photos) and someone like the fellow in this story who photographed all kinds of non-tourist structures and equipment at railway stations (CCTV cameras, lifts, entrances, exits) and then tried to hide that he was doing so. Compare that with the BBC photographer who was recently stopped for openly taking a scenic photo of St Paul's and the "wobbly" bridge.
- Exnewsgatherer, Oxford, UK, 15/12/2009 16:05
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"We do not want to go down the road of stopping people taking pictures but...."
Give it time - the current function creep of anti-Terrorist laws is already being used to intimidate the law abiding citizen.
After the recent high profile harassment of photographers in various London locations the police have created a climate of making people think twice about taking photographs in many London locations, e.g. travel hubs, etc. least they be arrested and held. How many here would now feel comfortable take photographs at a railway station and so forth. What a sad state of affairs we have now reach in the country.
al Qaeda 1
Freedom and Democracy 0.
Job done!
- John David, London, 15/12/2009 15:30
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The article doesn't state what terrorism charges were brought against the suspect, other than filming on his camera.
Sounds a bit of a circular argument by the police.
- Andy Elms, Bristol, 15/12/2009 15:23
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".....The Algerians have been deported since their conviction. The Crown Prosecution Service decided a terror sentence would not exceed that already given to them for the fraud offences..."
Really? Am I the only person reading this that is worried about such a statement?
It seems Supt Greany maybe seeking to justify the disproportionate use of Sec 44 POT powers by his officers in The City force and at odds with the positive statement by AC Yates of The Yard.
- Ranter, Maidstone, UK, 15/12/2009 15:04
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I find it difficult to believe that a terror offence carries a lesser penalty than a fraud offence.
The Judiciary are happy to jail people who defend their wife and family, (jailing Mr Huseein was grossly disproportonate) having seen them tied up by a notorious crook, but seem unwilling to protect the public at large.
If the judiciary remain out of step with what the people of Britain want and need - proper sentencing and proper policing, not artificial targets, they will jeopardise their independence enshrined in an unwritten constitution that does not protect individuals or society and is therfore, like much of this Government, not fit for purpose.
- Paul Canal, Wanstead, London, 15/12/2009 14:40
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Well done,but how many have done the same thing and not been caught?
- David Nigel Braham, Milan Italy, 15/12/2009 14:37
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later arrested under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of collecting information to commit an act of terrorism.
the UK is a nazi state,..using nazi tactics to terrorize the public,..
what next ? 10 years prison for using Google, Yahoo or Bing search engines,..or 5 years for filming a football match
- Britain Sucks, europe, 15/12/2009 14:33
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Why do people have to be recommended for deportation if they are foreign nationals? Surely if they aren't British nationals they should be deported after a prison sentence as a general rule.
- S-M Hearmon, London, UK, 15/12/2009 14:07
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Oh dear, the police are obsessed with the delusion that terrorists photograph their targets. They don't, its something that happens in the movies, that's all. The police think that real life is just like the movies and have started to arrest people with cameras (ncluding one chap who photographed a chip shop).
The 9/11 terrorists, the London tube bombings, Timothy McVeigh, none of them photographed their targets, so why do the police obsess over this issue?
- George, London, 15/12/2009 14:06
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I suppose this story is designed to make us embrace the criminalisation of photography.
- Neil, People'S Republic Of Europe (Formerly England), London UK, 15/12/2009 14:04
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