UK cops may have 'bomber'

2005-07-27 15:21

London - A man who was led away by police in an anti-terror raid in Birmingham on Wednesday looked like one of the men in the photographs of the four suspects in last week's failed bombings in London, a witness said.

Electrician Andy Wilkinson said he had seen the man being led from a property on his street in east Birmingham dressed in a white forensic suit and with his hands bound with plastic ties.

Wilkinson lives on Heybarnes Road in east Birmingham, the same street where police said they arrested a man in connection with the failed July 21 bombings and whom they have taken for questioning to London.

Britain's domestic Press Association said the man arrested there was believed be one of the bombing suspects, but police declined to confirm this.

"It was about ten past five, and all we could hear was a right racket - people trying to break a door down," said Wilkinson, 41, quoted by the Press Association.

"I looked out of the window and the road was full of armed police, and they had got the road closed off," he said.

"After 10 or 15 minutes they brought a guy out. He looked like the darkest-skinned one in the photos of the four suspects released by the police - the one with the curly hair," he said.

"They had him dressed in one of those white suits," he said.

"He had plastic cuffs on the front and just after he came out they brought a woman out, and she looked Filipino," he said.

Asked about the raided property, Wilkinson said: "It's been for rent for ages.

"According to the old bloke who lives next door, they come and go and they are not there all the time," he added. "It's almost like it's a letter drop. You don't see them for three days at a time.

"The front garden and hedge is overgrown, the grass is overgrown and the curtains haven't been changed in ages."

- AFP