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British, Italian police grill 21 suspects
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-01 16:29
Police in Britain and Italy questioned 21 suspects as they sought to piece
together the networks behind the London bombings, probing for possible links
between the two sets of attacks and for connections to any accomplices overseas,
Associated Press.
Investigators arrested seven people Sunday at a four-story brick apartment
building in Brighton, on England's southern coast, and also searched another
home in the city. They gave few details about what role the six men and seven
women were suspected of playing in the failed July 21 attacks on the capital's
transit system.
So far, 18 people are in custody in Britain and three in Italy.
Police say the four suicide bombers who carried out the July 7 attacks, which
killed 52 victims, are all dead. And they believe they have arrested all the
failed July 21 bombers, whose explosives detonated only partially and took no
lives.
Now they are searching for those who may have recruited and directed the
attackers and built the explosives, anxious to catch them before they — or other
would-be bombers they command — strike again.
Investigators are also searching for links between the two terror cells, one
made up mostly of Pakistani Britons and the other mainly of east African
immigrants to London. The groups struck exactly two weeks apart, each attacking
three London Underground trains and a red double-decker bus.
A spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan Police said investigators believed
there were more people at large who played some role in the attacks.
"It's extremely likely there will be other people involved in harboring
(suspects), financing and making the devices," she said, speaking on condition
of anonymity, because the department does not allow her to give her name.
In Italy, authorities were pursuing contacts linked to Osman Hussain, 27, who
was arrested in Rome on Friday and is suspected of trying to bomb the Shepherd's
Bush subway station in west London.
Police have discovered that Hussain called Saudi Arabia hours before his
arrest, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. The Sunday Times said another
bombing suspect — Ethiopian-born Briton Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27 — took a
monthlong trip to Saudi Arabia in 2003, telling friends he was to undergo
training there.
Britain was facing questions about how Hussain slipped out of the country
five days after the attempted attacks, despite a massive police manhunt. Italy's
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu says Hussain, also known as Hamdi Issac, left
London's Waterloo station by train for mainland Europe on July 26.
The Home Office said British immigration officials generally do not check the
passports of people leaving the country. However, police asked that checks be
made at many departure points, including Waterloo, after the attacks, a Home
Office spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
The Sunday Times said only French officials had checked Hussain's passport as
he left Britain, but the Home Office spokesman said British immigration
officials had been checking all international departures at Waterloo the day he
left.
Geoff Hoon, the leader of the House of Commons, said he realized there was
concern about whether the checks were stringent enough.
"I am aware that the Home Office will be looking at that," he told British
Broadcasting Corp. television. "I understand the criticism. It's important that
we are able to identify those coming into the country as well as those leaving."
Police had released closed-circuit television images of the four bombing
suspects shortly after the attacks, but the picture of Hussain, whose name was
not made public until his arrest, was grainy and difficult to make out, his face
shielded by a dark baseball cap. Police put out a second, clearer, image of him
a day after his escape.
Italian news reports said Hussain's real name was Hamdi Issac and that he was
from Ethiopia, not Somalia. He falsely listed his country of origin as Somalia
when he applied for asylum and citizenship in Britain, the reports said.
Hussain was arrested Friday in Rome at the apartment of his brother Remzi
Issac, who also was detained.
On Sunday, Italian police detained a second brother of Hussain, Fati Issac,
for questioning, the Italian news agency ANSA said. Fati Issac was accused of
destroying or hiding documents sought by investigators but is not alleged to
have plotted terror, ANSA said
Britain has requested Hussain's extradition, which his court-appointed
lawyer, Antonietta Sonnessa, said he is likely to fight.
She said Hussain acknowledges his involvement in the failed attack but claims
the planted bombs were intended not to kill anyone but only to draw attention.
Italian news reports had said the bombers were angry about the Iraq war.
"He has justified his actions as a form of protest against the fact that
civilians are suffering in wars at the present time," she told Britain's ITV
News.
Hussain also said his cell was not linked to either al-Qaida or the July 7
cell, Italian media reported.
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