LONDON, 17 September 2005 — Officers from West Yorkshire and the Antiterrorist Branch of the Metropolitan Police raided two shops and a flat in Beeston in Leeds where three of the July 7 bombers lived.
A West Yorkshire Police statement confirmed “the searches are part of an ongoing inquiry into the July 7 bombings.”
Police took away equipment and machinery from one of the shops in Beeston, believed to be a computer shop, for investigation.
One of the four suicide bombers, 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer, lived with his parents in the Beeston area. He detonated the bomb on a Circle Line tube train near Aldgate station that claimed seven lives.
The ring leader of the alleged suicide cell, 30-year-old Mohammad Siddique Khan, the oldest of the four, was responsible for bombing the tube train at Edgware Road which killed six people. He hailed from nearby Dewsbury in Leeds, a stone’s throw from Beeston.
The third tube train bomber, 19-year-old Germaine Lindsay, hailed from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, but he had connections with Beeston. Lindsay detonated the bomb on the Picaddilly Line tube train near King’s Cross in which 23 people died. The fourth bomber 18-year-old Hasib Hussain lived in the Leeds district of Holbeck.
In the aftermath of the July 7 bombings and the botched July 21 attacks, Prime Minister Tony Blair promised sweeping measures to fight terrorism. In an interview to BBC Radio 4’s Today Program yesterday Blair defended his government’s tough anti-terrorism laws.
Civil rights groups and lawyers said the latest plans are draconian compared with other countries.
“Britain has the most extensive terrorism code in Europe. Failings are from intelligence services, police and politicians, not the law,” said Leeds University law professor Clive Walker. “Zimbabwe’s (President) Robert Mugabe will be laughing.”
Most contested is the plan to extend the pre-charge detention period, a move demanded by police.
“This could lead to abusive practices, including detaining people without the intention or realistic prospect of bringing charges,” said Claudio Cordone of Amnesty International.
Blair defended his plans, saying there was no “untrammeled right” to human liberties. “It’s always been qualified by some sense of duty or responsibility,” he told the BBC radio. Blair said: “Virtually every country in Europe following terrorist acts, has been toughening” its legislation.
“And the fact that someone who comes into our country, and maybe seeks refuge here, the fact that we say if, when you are here, you want to stay here, play by the rules, play fair, don’t start inciting people to go and kill other innocent people in Britain,” he said. “When people say this is an abrogation of our traditional civil liberties, I think it is possible to exaggerate that,” Blair added.
