Category: News
Date: 08.03.2006
Printable version
Reporting for tonight's Panorama, Peter Taylor gives the most definitive account to date of the hugely controversial alleged 'shoot to kill' policy, Operation Kratos.
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Jean Charles de Menezes was an innocent victim, shot seven times in the head by two undercover officers from the Metropolitan Police's elite CO19 firearms team.
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The programme (Panorama: Stockwell - Countdown to Killing, 91Èȱ¬ ONE, 9.00pm) asks how Kratos evolved and how the operation went wrong.
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Barbara Wilding was the senior officer charged with devising the Kratos policy. She is now Chief Constable of South Wales.
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She headed the Suicide Bomber Working Party tasked with reviewing strategy to deal with the threat of suicide terrorism after 9/11.
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Says Wilding: "I was asked exactly what it says on the tin which is to look at our current counter terrorism strategy and identify any gaps in that strategy to deal with this new threat.
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"We had gaps, and we had to fill those gaps as soon as possible."
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'Kratos' was formally signed off operationally and legally at a meeting on 22 January 2003 at MI5 headquarters in London.
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But according to Barbara Wilding the scenario which occurred on 22 July 2005 was not one the Metropolitan Police had anticipated and planned for.
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The policy was worked on for 15 months with input from senior police officers, the 91Èȱ¬ Office, M15, the SAS and Government law officers.
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Kratos dealt specifically with a spontaneous suicide attack when there was no intelligence about it.
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The other scenario, in which there was detailed intelligence about an attack on a fixed event, was called Operation Clydesdale.
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Says Wilding: "The planning that we did, did we look at a mobile intelligence gathering operation going live? The answer is no we didn't."
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Panorama reveals that there was no specific plan to cover such a rapidly escalating scenario - so officers had to adapt their procedures accordingly.
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Also in the programme, Lord John Stevens, Commissioner, Metropolitan Police from 2000 to 2005, says that since 9/11 the Metropolitan Police had repeatedly asked the 91Èȱ¬ Office to provide radios that would work deep underground.
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Says Stevens: "It was raised with the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary at the time and the 91Èȱ¬ Office, it was a major issue.
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"Communications are essential, and the reasons for that is in a fast moving situation, you have to inform the officers involved what is taking place. Equally importantly they have to get back in touch with you."
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"All I can say is that we continued to ask for this kind of thing to be addressed. You can take it from me, that we pressurised as far as possible, and I personally pressurised for the communication systems to be working."
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Panorama endeavours to explain what really happened that day.
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And with exclusive interviews with senior Metropolitan Police officers involved in the evolution and implementation of Kratos and filming of CO 19's training, the programme explores the wider issues raised by Stockwell as Panorama follows the de Menezes family from Brazil to London in their quest for answers.
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