Yard's terror expert will take over security at UN

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Times
From James Bone in New York



THE Metropolitan Police officer who has been leading Britain’s fight against al-Qaeda was named yesterday as the new security supremo at the United Nations.
Sir David Veness, 57, an assistant commissioner considered one of Europe’s leading experts on counter-terrorism, is to leave Britain to become the UN’s under-secretary-general for safety and security.

He is the second Briton appointed to a top post at UN headquarters so far this month — a move that ironically casts doubt on Britain’s continued control of the UN’s powerful political department.

Sir David, who was knighted in the New Year’s honours, will head a new department set up after a scathing review found deadly security lapses leading to the bombing of the UN office in Baghdad in 2003, which killed the UN representative in Iraq and 21 others. The UN’s Burmese security co-ordinator was dismissed after that attack.

The organisation, whose headquarters have already been the target of an aborted plot by Islamic extremists, has faced direct threats by Osama bin Ladin and is confronting a growing number of attacks on its staff around the world.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,174-1439705,00.html