Forensics officers at the scene following the fatal shooting (Image: Getty Images)A man shot dead by police after officers stopped a car on a motorway slip road was lawfully killed, an inquest jury concluded.Yassar Yaqub, 28, was in the front passenger seat in one of two cars travelling in convoy on the M62 when four unmarked police vehicles surrounded them at junction 24 at Ainley Top near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. A six-week-long inquest heard Mr Yaqub ignored a command to “show me your hands” and instead “crouched down” before raising a handgun over the Audi’s dashboard, an officer told the jury at Leeds Crown Court.The officer, identified as V39, said he leaned out of his car window and fired three shots at Mr Yaqub from 1.5 metres away, with two bullets hitting him in the chest and causing “catastrophic blood loss”.V39 said he had feared for his life and “had no alternative”. In its conclusion on Wednesday, the jury said V39 “honestly believed that a firearm was being aimed at him, his life was in danger and he used reasonable force discharging his firearm”.Mr Yaqub was described by police intelligence as a “highly active criminal”, the jury heard, with an operation set up in October 2016 in response to alleged threats he and another man had been making. V39 was the passenger in one of the police vehicles following Mr Yaqub and his associates on January 2 2017 from Akbar’s Cafe in Bradford, West Yorkshire.After driving on the M62 towards Huddersfield, the police made the stop at the junction known as Ainley Top. Mr Yaqub’s father, Mohammed Yaqub, said the jury’s conclusion is “disappointing for the family”.Speaking outside court, he said: “It just doesn’t add up.”Mr Yaqub Snr, who has campaigned for five years to find out exactly what happened to his son, told Manchester Evening News: “A lot of people I know have had a lot of people killed and hardly any of them have ever got anywhere. So we were no exception.”He said he has got the answers he needs from the inquest but said it is ‘definitely not the end’. Mr Yaqub Snr, from Huddersfield, said: “It’s been very difficult. Every day has been like a nightmare. But it’s something as a father I owed to my son.”He added: “The loss of a child is still there, as fresh as on January 2, 2017.”Steve Noonan, director of major investigations at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said: “At no stage during the investigation did the evidence indicate that any officer may have committed a criminal offence or breached the standards of professional behaviour. The officer who fired the shots gave a clear and credible account, which was strongly supported by other evidence, explaining the use of force to IOPC investigators.”Based on the available information, we considered the use of force to be necessary and reasonable in the circumstances as he genuinely and reasonably believed them to be.”Following the conclusion, West Yorkshire Police’s Chief Constable John Robins QPM DL, released a lengthy statement in which he offered the force’s sympathies to the Yaqub family but said that the shooting was necessary to keep the public safe. Chief Cons Robins said the past six years since Mr Yaqub’s shooting have also been ‘difficult’ for the officers and staff directly involved.He said the sole intention of the force at the time was to “safely detain Mr Yaqub and to remove illegally held firearms from our streets” but added that events “rapidly unfolded” meaning officers had to “take the necessary and proportionate action.”The driver of the Audi Mr Yaqub was travelling in, Mohsin Amin, was jailed for 18 years in 2018 for firearms offences linked to the incident.
Man shot dead by police on motorway ‘lawfully killed’, inquest hears
Sourceexpress.co.uk
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