London – It was a busy day in Britain’s crackdown on terror:
A suspect in failed bomb attacks on the London transit system appeared in court.
A Muslim convert was sentenced to 15 years in a separate terrorism case. And police arrested a man near planes at Manchester airport and blew up his suitcase.
Also, the wife of one of the four July 7 suicide bombers said in an interview published Friday that her late husband was a “naive” man whose mind was poisoned by his contacts with Britain’s radical mosques.
A day after his extradition from Italy, Ethiopian-born Hussain Osman, charged in the July 21 attempt to bomb the London Underground, made his first appearance at the high-security court at Belmarsh prison. A magistrate denied Osman’s bail application and set his next court appearance for Dec. 8.
The hearing came after Osman lost a two-month battle to avoid extradition from Italy to face British charges that include conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and possession of explosives. He was flown to London on Thursday.
Osman allegedly fled to Italy in the days after the bombings and was arrested in Rome. He has said through his lawyer that the bombing attempt was meant to scare people, not kill them. Osman is believed to have been the man captured on closed-circuit television footage attempting to bomb the Shepherd’s Bush subway station July 21.
As that case got started, another came to a close.
A London court convicted Andrew Rowe, 34, of having a notebook containing details on how to fire a mortar and a code that could be used to communicate about potential terror targets. Justice Adrian Fulford sentenced Rowe to consecutive sentences of 7 1/2 years on each of two counts.
Rowe – who converted to Islam after a troubled youth and reportedly made trips to Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan – was arrested in October 2003 near the tunnel that runs under the English Channel, connecting Britain and France. Prosecutors said traces of high explosives were found on a pair of socks in his luggage on the French side of the Chunnel, but they never linked him to a specific terrorist plot.
Meanwhile, in the Manchester airport arrest, an unidentified man was seen carrying a suitcase and walking under a plane, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. A bomb squad later carried out a controlled explosion of the suitcase, which turned out to contain only clothing, papers and a passport, police said. Police were holding the man under provisions of the Mental Health Act.
Speaking to The Sun tabloid, the wife of one of the July 7 bombers, Jermaine Lindsay, said her husband had fallen under the influence of radical mosques in Luton and London.
Samantha Lewthwaite, whose husband also used the name Jamal, did not identify any mosque by name.
“How these people could have turned him and poisoned his mind is dreadful,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. “He was an innocent, naive and simple man. I suppose he must have been an ideal candidate.
