Cops 'warned' about 7/7
2006-06-24 13:17
London - A man who said he knew two of the men responsible for a terrorist attack on London's Underground system last July had tried to warn police of the possible threat they posed, a British newspaper reported on Saturday.
Martin Gilbertson met Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer in Beeston, West Yorkshire, which is about 310km north of London. He told The Guardian newspaper he was introduced to them at a party held to celebrate the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
Gilbertson, 45, said he was working as a computer technician encrypting e-mails and securing websites, and producing anti-Western videos for people who were involved in a local Islamic bookshop and youth centre. By October 2003, he said the material alarmed him to the extent he went to a local police station and asked to deliver it to anti-terrorist officers.
Police told him to mail them the material, which Gilbertson said he did, also enclosing a list of names, including those of Khan and Tanweer. They were later identified as two of the men who attacked London's transportation system during the busy morning rush hour July 7. Fifty-six people, including the four bombers, died in the attacks.
A West Yorkshire spokesperson told The Guardian that it was impossible to determine what happened to the package Gilbertson said he sent police.
On Saturday, West Yorkshire police said they had no comment and referred calls on Gilbertson's allegations to London's Metropolitan police, the lead investigators in the attacks. London police referred calls to West Yorkshire police.
Gilbertson said he heard nothing from police until after the attacks, the Guardian reported. He spoke three times with Met officers after contacting them.
A parliamentary report released last month said British intelligence agencies had been aware of two of the bombers - suspected ringleader Khan and Tanweer - before the attacks. It was decided not to closely watch them because their identities were not clear and agents were busy examining other unspecified plans to attack Britain.
- SAPA