UK police scour house for traces of chemical bomb

LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) British anti-terrorist police today searched for evidence of a suspected chemical bomb plot at a house raided two days ago as officers quizzed two men.

Police detained the men on Friday after 250 officers, some in chemical suits, stormed the east London home.

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

One of the suspects, a 23-year-old man, was shot during the dawn raid and is recovering in hospital.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is investigating the shooting, refused on Sunday to comment on newspaper speculation that the man was shot in a scuffle with officers and that the police did not pull the trigger.

''Our investigation into the circumstances surrounding the discharge of the firearm continues,'' said a spokesman for the commission. He could not say how long the inquiry would take.

Kate Roxburgh, the lawyer of the wounded man, said on Saturday police fired on him without warning.

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 bombings in the capital. They wrongly identified him as a suicide bomber.

Friday's raid was one of the biggest operations since the July attacks although police said it was not related.

Police said today they were concentrating their search on the house in London's Forest Gate, an ethnically mixed area with a sizeable Muslim population. They carried out ''small searches'' on Saturday at the workplaces of the two suspects.

''The search will continue,'' said a spokesman for London police.

''We have said we were acting on intelligence.'' A police source told Reuters officers were seeking ''some form of viable chemical device'' that could kill -- a conventional bomb laced with toxic material.

Both suspects -- being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism -- have denied any links with a terrorism plot through their lawyers.

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

Neighbours in London's Forest Gate, an ethnically diverse area with a sizeable Muslim population, described the men as friendly and ''very religious''.

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

REUTERS SK BD1500