LONDON, 3 December 2003 — British police arrested 14 people on suspicion of terrorism offenses in raids around the country yesterday.
Four men were arrested in London, and four men and two women were arrested in the university city of Cambridge, London’s Metropolitan Police said.
West Midlands police said they arrested four men under the Terrorism Act in Dudley and Walsall near Birmingham. There were no details released on those arrests, except that police said they were not related to other recent arrests. The Metropolitan Police said officers searched an address in Cambridge, and arrested three men and the two women there. They later arrested another man at a different address, and all were being held in Cambridge.
Those arrested in Cambridge and London were all detained under section 41 of the Terrorism Act “on suspicion of involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism,” police said. In London, two 29-year-olds, a 28-year-old and a 32-year-old were detained by anti-terrorist officers who raided six homes and three business addresses in southwest London shortly after 0500 GMT, police said.
They said the four men were being questioned at a central London police station and searches were continuing on those homes and businesses.
Home Secretary David Blunkett dismissed suggestions that he might have prejudiced the trial of a terror suspect by saying the man was a threat to Britain.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Blunkett said it was “silly nonsense” to suggest that his comments about the arrest of Sajid Badat in Gloucester, western England, last week, might have put any trial at risk.
Challenged by lawmakers to explain himself, he insisted, “I would do it again.”
