How very odd! Joining the dots in Luton ?

Royston and Buntingford Mercury 29 July 2005Muktar Saed Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Saed, 27, was named by police in connection with the attempted attack on the No 26 bus in Hackney, East London, last Thursday.

In 1996 he was jailed for a series of street robberies (he was then 18), including one in Melbourn Street, Luton in May 1995 (Melbourn is a village outside Royston), and may also have been involved in incidents in Stevenage, Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City.

The Mercury learnt that the alleged would-be bomber was part of a gang who appeared at Luton Crown Court in February 1996 and pleaded guilty to several charges.

It is believed that when Ibrahim appeared in court with two of his accomplices he had already received a three-year prison sentence from a court in north London for similar offences.
At Luton, he pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted robbery, one charge of robbery and another count of handling stolen goods.

He got one year, two years and another two years respectively to run concurrently, but in addition to the previous sentence.

Jermayne Lindsay died in the worst of the suicide attacks -- a subway bomb that killed at least 26 people between King's Cross and Russell Square stations. Former schoolfriends of Lindsay, who grew up in Rawthorpe, Huddersfield, said that he visited Afghanistan four years ago and returned to Britain as a hardline Muslim. The police are known to have been looking losely at Lindsay’s connections in the Luton area.

Abdullah Shaheed Jamal when he converted to Islam at the same time as his mother when he was sixteen, it is said he may have may have been the most senior of the four bombers.There are reports (unconfirmed) that Lindsay / Jamal was tracked by federal authorities to the United States in 2000. His mother had been living in Cleveland, Ohio, in the late 1990s.For the last six months he was living with his partner in a small rented semi-detached house in Aylesbury. Jermaine Lindsay's partner Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, mother of his one-year-old son, is expecting her second baby very soon.

It is known that the three other bombers travelled from West Yorkshire to London via Luton in a hire car. After they detonated their devices to deadly effect, further bombs were found at Luton station in Jamal's red Fiat car.

One officer said that Lindsay appeared to have links with criminal activity in the town.

Luton has also been a hotbed of radical Islamist activity for several years, with extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun having an influence over young Muslims there.

Last year several arrests were made in Luton in connection with another anti-terrorist operation in August 2004 when 13 arrests were made across the country. Details cannot be reported because it is the subject of a forthcoming criminal trial.

Lindsays bank became suspicious before the 7/7 attacks and hired a private firm to examine his finances, said detective Noel Hogan, managing director of Hogan and Co. Intl. Hogan said one of the purchases he examined was a large amount of perfume (said to be £900). He said the company contacted police once Lindsay's name was publicly linked to the attacks.

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The men arrested and charged in the August 2004 Anti - terror raids were ;

A - Dhiren BAROT (19/12/71 - aged 32) of Willesden, London.

B - Omar Abdur REHMAN (17/12/83 - aged 20) of Bushey, Hertfordshire.

E - Mohammed Ul HAQ (7/10/78 - aged 25) of Paddington, London.

F - Abdul Aziz JALIL (22/4/73 - aged 31) of Luton, Bedfordshire.

H - Nadeem TARMOHAMED (19/5/78 - aged 26) of Willesden, London.

I - Mohammed Naveed BHATTI (16/1/80 - aged 24) of Harrow, Middlesex.

J - Quaisar SHAFFI (30/8/78 - aged 25) of Willesden, London.

L - Junade FEROZE (18/8/75 - aged 28) of Blackburn, Lancashire.

All eight appeared in custody at Bow Street Magistrates‚ Court, sitting at Belmarsh, on Wed. 18 August 04. On conspiracy charges to commit murder and possession of illegal substances.Details

A ninth man [D] - Matthew Philip MONKS (3/10/71 - aged 32) of Sudbury, London - is being charged with possession of a prohibited weapon - apparently a Brocock air pistol, a favourite amongst low level criminals since it works with individual pressurised gas cartridges, and can be converted to fire real pistol ammunition. (BBC Radio Manchester web page withdrawn)