Raided Islamic School Trained UK Police in "Diversity"

Tue, Sep 5, 2006 at 7:59:24 am PDT

The jaw-dropper of the day: U.K. Police Trained at Islamic School at Center of Terror Probe.

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) — U.K. police officers were given “diversity training” at an Islamic school southeast of London that’s now at the center of a terrorism investigation.

Anti-Terrorist Branch police from London raided the private Jameah Islameah school in East Sussex and in the same inquiry arrested 14 people in London Sept. 1 and 2. The county’s police force said its own officers visited the school as many as 15 times for training to improve their awareness of Muslim culture. London police said the raids aren’t tied to the 2005 London bombings or arrests Aug. 10 over an alleged plot to bomb planes. ...

“We are not embarrassed by our involvement with the school but, inevitably, this will have to be reviewed in the light of the weekend’s events,” Sussex Police said in an e-mailed statement.

The campus was brought to the attention of U.K. authorities in 1999, when Yemen’s ambassador to the U.K. alleged it was used to train young Islamic extremists, the Daily Telegraph reported. Police concluded at the time that the allegation was “totally unsubstantiated,” and then-Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said there had been no breach of British law, the newspaper reported.

Sussex Police today said the school was used by officers and staff for advanced training so they could themselves become diversity trainers. “This has involved a series of one-day visits to the school by groups of two or three trainers on up to 15 occasions over more than a year,” police said. A police spokesman said he couldn’t immediately provide further details of the arrangements between the school and the force.