The head of Interpol said Monday that Britain’s anti-terrorist efforts are “in the wrong century,” pointing out that authorities in London had not shared any information from the investigation of three failed car bomb attacks and had not made good use of a passport database. “We have received not one name, not one fingerprint, not one telephone number, not one address, nothing, from the UK, about the recent thwarted terrorist attacks,” Ronald Noble, Interpol’s secretary general, said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.
“My view is that the UK’s anti-terrorist effort is in the wrong century,” Noble said.
“It is not aware of what we are able to do today globally, and they should do more. We don’t have one Metropolitan police officer from the anti-terrorist unit assigned to Interpol - not one. Can you explain to me why that is?”
Detectives on three continents are working to piece together details of the failed attacks on two London nightspots and the airport in Glasgow, Scotland.
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown received a preliminary report from the security minister, Alan West, on his review of the National Health ServiceÂ’s procedures for investigating the credentials of physicians. All of the suspects in the car bomb investigation were employees or past employees of the health service.