“Dammit! Pakistanis!”

I’m going to read a newly-borrowed copy of Nafeez Ahmed’s The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry afore I start to peer at the inquest transcripts or the sceptic’s coverage thereof. I need of bit of background: the tools to chisel out the truth or some equally trite likeness. Nonetheless, this little nugget is quite irresistible. If nought else it shows why press reportage is inept.

A GRANDMOTHER described today how one of the 7/7 suicide attackers glared at her as she witnessed them setting off from their Leeds bomb factory on their final journey.

From her bedroom window Sylvia Waugh watched the bombers loading rucksacks packed with homemade explosives into cars in the early hours of July 7 2005, the inquest heard.

…

Shown pictures of the four men who carried out the 7/7 attacks, she said she saw all of them at the Alexandra Grove bomb factory apart from Hasib Hussain, and she identified the man who looked at her as Jermaine Lindsay.

This is echoed in a host of papers, which, as we’ll see, should give Nick Davies reams of material for Flat Earth News 2. See, by then Jermaine Lindsay is claimed to have been miles away. Why members of the inquest didn’t note this beyond me. As Kier points out at the J7 messageboards, even the most uninformed of hacks should have had reason to doubt Ms Waugh’s testimony…

16 Q. Can you give us any other description of that person?
17 A. Just that they all looked the same to me.
18 Q. All right. Did you recognise –
19 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: As in –
20 A. As they’re all being coloured.
21 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Are we talking about –
22 A. Like the Pakistanis, to me they all look alike.
23 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Did they look Pakistani to you?
24 A. Yes.

Research. They won’t do it for you.

Here are the transcripts; here’s some rolling criticism. I’d recommend keeping a wary eye on both.