Posted on 06/15/2006 6:29:19 PM PDT by blam
Anti-terrorist police found £30,000 in a suitcase during raid
By John Steele, Crime Correspondent
(Filed: 16/06/2006)
Police are investigating a large sum of cash - understood to be at least £30,000 - that was discovered in the house raided by anti-terrorist officers in east London two weeks ago.
The family of the two brothers caught up in the raid said last night that the money was mostly rent income kept in a suitcase because of Islamic objections to banks.
Abul Kahar and Abul Koyair, who were arrested in the raid, were released without charge last week and have not faced any allegations in relation to the money.
Police, however, are still examining the background of the cash.
Sources have confirmed that a sum of more than £30,000 was discovered during the search of the two linked houses in Lansdown Road, Forest Gate. Some reports have suggested it was as much as £38,000.
Yesterday, the family of Kahar, 23, who was shot in the raid, and Koyair, 20, issued a statement saying that police had been told money would be found in the property.
Humeya Kalam, the men's sister, said: "The monies are neither sinister nor unexplained."
The statement did not discuss the amount.
Miss Kalam added: "In the early hours of the morning of Friday June 2 my parents' house at 46 Lansdown Road was entered by police and my brother Kahar was shot.
"I and my parents were taken from number 46 where we all lived, to Plaistow police station.
"At about 6am on the same day, I informed the police that they would find a substantial amount of money in a suitcase in the basement of 48 Lansdown Road. Number 48 is owned by me. It is not owned by any other person in my family.
"I told the police that the money comes primarily from the monthly income from the rental of number 48, kept by my mother for safe keeping over the period of time in which I have owned the house, i.e. over approximately four years.
"My mother has never felt it right to keep this money in a bank account, or to hold savings in a bank: Islam prohibits the keeping of money in circumstances where interest is earned or where it is paid. "My mother has always held our savings in this way; in the same way savings were kept by her for me to buy number 48.
"Now in turn, I am providing my income from number 48 for my mother to keep in the same way.
"My brothers Kahar and Koyair each contribute from their wages every month to the money that my mother holds.
"Despite being told this by me, at Plaistow police station, and by my brothers entirely separately in Paddington Green Station, the police have asked neither my mother nor my father any questions on this issue." She added that family members had told police the money was "the sum total of contributions of all of us to our mother to keep for us.
"My mother had the key for the suitcase in which the money is kept with her."
Well rehearsed cover story?
The money to buy the poison that was never found?
Come on, you can do better than that! What must mattresses look like in Saudi?
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