UK chemical bomb suspect denies attack plot

LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) One of two men accused of plotting to make a chemical bomb for an attack in Britain has denied any involvement, his lawyer said today, as police continued to search his house.

The 20-year-old man was held during a dawn raid on Friday when more than 250 police officers, some in chemical suits, stormed the east London home.

His 23-year-old brother was shot in the shoulder during the raid, one of the biggest operations since last July's London suicide attacks, although police said it was not related.

Intelligence had suggested the house may have been used to make a toxic bomb for an attack in Britain, police sources said.

''My client denies any involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism or anything to do with explosives or firearms,'' the 20-year-old's lawyer Julian Young told reporters.

''To date I have seen no evidence showing that he has been, literally no evidence.'' Police said on Sunday they were concentrating their search on the suspects' house in London's Forest Gate, an ethnically mixed area with a sizeable Muslim population. They searched the men's workplaces on Saturday.

Officers are looking for ''some form of viable chemical device'' that could kill -- a conventional bomb laced with toxic material, a police source told Reuters.

Young said he had been given no details about the supposed plot.

He also rejected other newspaper reports that suggested his client had shot his brother in a scuffle with police.

''As far as I'm aware, there is no truth in this,'' he said.

British firearms police have been under the spotlight since they shot dead an innocent Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, in the weeks following last year's suicide attacks. They wrongly identified him as a suicide bomber.

Young said the case struck him as similar to the Menezes shooting.

Asan Rehman, a spokesman for a family arrested from a neighbouring house but then freed, told Reuters the two brothers, were Muslims and of Bangladeshi origin.

Police have said nothing suspicious was found in an initial search of the house and that neighbours are not in danger.

REUTERS SK BD1731