chemical materials were found and the two brothers were released without charge on the evening of 9 June. After the two men gave a press conference on 13 June, the Metropolitan Police apologised for the "hurt" caused. The Metropolitan Police revealed under freedom of information legislation that what was known as Operation Volga had cost £2,211,600, including £864,300 on overtime payments for the dozens of police officers involved, £90,000 on hotel bills, and £120,000 for repairs to the damage caused to the houses by the police. It has been alleged that a British Muslim, Abu Bakr Mansha, who was jailed in January 2006 on terrorism charges and who grew up in the neighbourhood, had provided the intelligence "trigger" for the raid, although this has been denied by his lawyer. Protests Protests by Muslim groups were held outside Scotland Yard on Friday 9 June and on Sunday 11 June, where a sister of those arrested said that she hoped that the protests would "highlight the fact no other innocent family should be forced to go through the same nightmare." On 18 June 2006, approximately 5,000 people from a broad cross-section of local communities marched throughout Newham to Forest Gate Police Station in a protest against the violent nature in which the raids had taken place. The march was organised by a coalition of local groups, including the main support group to the families Newham Monitoring Project. Reactions Reactions to the raid were mixed. Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman said that they had "no choice but to act" but also apologised for the "disruption and inconvenience" the raid caused. The Muslim Council of Britain welcomed the releases, but hoped "lessons would be learned". The then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said that he supported the police "101%", adding that "You can only imagine if they fail to take action and something terrible happened what outcry would be then, so they are in an impossible situation." The prime minister also defended police chief Ian Blair, when several papers called on him to resign over the raid. A solicitor for the two men said that they planned to sue the Metropolitan Police, for a figure which lawyers estimated could be as high as £500,000, but at a press conference on 13 June 2006 Abdul Kahar said that suing the police was "not even in our heads", and they were more interested in an apology.