LONDON, 14 June 2006 — A British man shot by anti-terrorist police during a pre-dawn raid on an east London house said yesterday the officer gave him no warning before pulling the trigger.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar, 23, who was shot in the shoulder, said he thought he was going to die during the operation. Police said they had “very specific intelligence” about a chemical device from a tip-off and were left with no choice to mount the June 2 raid.

“We both had eye contact — he shot me straight away,” Kahar told a news conference. “I just saw an orange spark and a big bang. I flew into the wall, slipped down. There was blood coming down my chest. I knew I was shot.”

Conflicting reports have emerged about how he was shot, with some newspapers saying there had been a struggle. Police have said only that a shot was fired and an inquiry is under way.

Kahar told reporters: “The only crime I have done in their eyes is being Asian and with a long length of beard.”

Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, 20, said they believed their house in Forest Gate was being burgled, because the police did not identify themselves. “I thought one by one they are going to kill us,” said Kahar, his right arm in a sling. “I thought I was going to die.

“My whole upper body was just burning. It seemed like I was on fire. I was just screaming, saying ‘please, it’s burning’. The pain was just killing me.” His brother said he was woken up by the sound of smashing glass and thought he must have been dreaming. “They tried to murder my brother,” Koyair said. “They dragged me away from my brother and they dragged me down the stairs and they were hitting me.”

The pair were released without charge last week after being arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000. They denied any link to terrorism and said they had no idea why police had raided their house.

Newspapers said the high-profile operation had increased pressure on London police chief Ian Blair, who has already been heavily criticized over the fatal shooting on a London train last July of a Brazilian wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber.