Police arrest 'man who was asked to join 7 July bombers'
ALASTAIR DALTON
A MAN who was reported to have been asked to join the group of suicide bombers which attacked London in July has been arrested by police.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed yesterday that anti-terrorist officers had arrested a 27-year-old man in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, on Saturday.
He was held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Scotland Yard said he was arrested following comments made to the News of the World.
The newspaper is understood to have passed an interview with a man they named as Imran Patel to police involved in the investigation into the London bombings.
Patel, believed to be an auditor in Leeds, is reported to have had military training in Pakistan. The newspaper said he was in his early thirties.
Patel allegedly told the newspaper he met the suicide bombers - Mohammad Sadique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18 - in Dewsbury after he returned to the UK.
He told the paper Khan had asked him to join the bombing mission. However, he decided not to take part after the group suggested attacking a school where children would have been the victims.
Patel was reported to have said he would never attack a target in Britain but would willingly do so abroad.
He also said he had a young Muslim friend who was close to launching an atrocity in Britain.
Patel was reported as saying: "He is definitely ready. This guy is married. I said to him, 'What about the wife?'
"He said, 'I'll ask permission from my wife, but if it's not granted it's permissible for me still to go.'"
Patel said he also knew of at least six other Muslims from Dewsbury who had trained in camps in Pakistan, and who were now back in Britain. Patel said he agreed to speak to the newspaper to make people "understand that Jihad is valid". Jihad is an Arabic word that refers to the Islamic struggle to do good. Many extremist Muslims use it to refer to holy war.
He told the newspaper: "It is permissible, but only in appropriate places, and Britain is not one of them."
He was reported to have been among a group of British Muslims recruited by a mullah in Dewsbury to go to Pakistan for military training in 2003.
Two residential addresses are being searched in connection with the Dewsbury investigation, a police spokesman said. Khan also lived in Dewsbury. The two were reported to have met at Patel's house, where they watched Jihad videos calling for Muslims to launch a holy war. They were also reported to have held discussions about their "mission" to carry out terrorist attacks in Britain.
The paper said Patel had not given the bombers' identities to the police after refusing to take part in the attacks because he did not want to see his Muslim "brothers" jailed.
The Met spokesman said the man had been taken to a West Yorkshire police station for questioning. He said: "We thank the News of the World for drawing the matter to our attention, and material passed to the police by the newspaper is being assessed by the Anti-Terrorist Branch."
• Police were last night granted more time to question three terror suspects following a series of armed police raids across the South East of England. Officers from the Anti-Terrorist Branch said the arrests were not connected to the London transport explosions.
They now have until Thursday to question the three, who were in custody in a central London police station.