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Cops probe bombers' finances
19/07/2005 21:59 - (SA)
London - Authorities trying to track down those who may have bankrolled the four London suicide bombers are examining the suspects' bills, credit cards and internet transactions in the hope that the money trail will lead to any handlers or associates.
An unspecified number of financial documents were seized in a series of recent raids on the bombers' homes in a heavily Islamic neighbourhood in the northern city of Leeds.
Counter-terrorism experts said on Tuesday that those records could contain important clues as investigators work to determine to what degree the attackers relied on outside help.
John Carnt, a former Scotland Yard detective who dealt extensively with financial crime and money-laundering, said investigators "want to know how they spent their money and on what".
3 500 documents seized
Carnt said: "It's a bit like putting pieces on a jigsaw puzzle and building up the picture."
Authorities refused to release details of the records being examined, saying only that they were included in an estimated 3 500 seized documents that included telephone records, receipts and letters.
Investigators also seized computer hard drives from the bombers' homes to determine their e-mail correspondence and any internet purchases they might have made.
The Times of London reported on Tuesday that officials in Britain and Pakistan - which investigators said was visited by three of the four bombers, British Muslims of Pakistani ancestry - were looking into possible money transfers from Pakistan to Leeds.
London bombings 'not like 9/11'
Some experts doubt investigators would come up with much on the financial front.
Loretta Napoleoni, author of Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks, said: "This wasn't a transnational attack like 9/11.
"To do a transnational attack, you need to move money internationally. The London situation is completely different. It was a localised attack done by a homegrown group."
She said: "The amount of money that was needed was peanuts. We're talking about the explosives, three plane tickets to Pakistan, a rental car, a few train tickets and a few Tube tickets, all of which they probably paid for in cash."
'Accounts linked to attacks'
Britain's treasury, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that authorities had frozen 45 bank accounts containing a total of $646 000 ahead of the July 7 Underground and bus bombings, which killed 56 people and wounded about 700 others.
A Treasury spokesperson declined to say whether any accounts linked to the attacks had been frozen.
According to the Bank of England's financial sanctions division, some of the frozen accounts were registered to organisations or individuals with suspected links to al-Qaeda.
Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, said he would set up a group that would work across government departments to identify targets for the freezing of assets.
- AP
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