Abu Hamzeh arrested in London
Yemen-UK, Politics, 3/16/1999

The British police on Monday arrested the extremist Abu Hamzeh al-Masri following months of close follow-up of his activities in the British capital for sending armed British citizens to Yemen to carry out terrorist acts there.

A British security spokesman said on Monday that the arrest of Abu Hamzeh, who is of Egyptian origin and the leader of Ansar al-Sharia extremist group, was accused in London of having ties with Osama Bin Laden and of planning terrorist acts abroad from his residence in London.

The British security spokesman added that Abu Hamzeh al-Masri had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet presence there. He lost one of his arms there and emigrated to Britain where he was granted political asylum by the British authorities.

Moreover, a spokeswoman for the British police told the London-based al-Hayat daily that the "terrorism-fighting " police broke on Monday at dawn into three houses in different areas of east London and arrested three persons aged 40, 36, and 39 according to article 14 of the law of fighting terrorism, adding that the three men are being investigated in a police center in London.

The spokeswoman refused to confirm or deny links between these arrests to the recent events in Yemen. It is known that Sanaa asked London in January to hand over Abu Hamzeh in order to try him on charges of sending a group of eight Britons and two Algerian to carry out acts of violence in Yemen.

Members of the group, including the son of Abu Hamzeh (Muhammad) and the son of his wife (Muhsin Geilan) are currently being tried in Aden.

Al-Hayat added that the British police did not inspect Finsbury Park mosque in north London, in which Abu Hamzeh is very active. The spokeswoman added that there are no plans to break into the mosque, noting that the breaking in operations had so far covered only apartments.

This is the second operation to be carried out in the circles of the Islamists following the " defiance operation" in September 1998 which resulted in arresting the Saudi Khaled al-Fawaz and another five Egyptian Islamists.

In Sanaa, an official source at the Yemeni Foreign Ministry told the official news agency, Sabaa, that the arrest of Abu Hamzeh confirms the rightful accusations addressed to him by the Yemeni authorities. The Yemeni official source added that kidnapping tourists in Abyan "had been planned from outside Yemen in order to distort the image of Yemen and direct a blow to tourism industry in Yemen."

The official source added that arresting Abu Hamzeh indicates "the good Yemeni-British cooperation in fighting terrorism."

In Cairo the Egyptian authorities gave no comment on the arrest of two other Egyptians with Abu Hamzeh al-Serri and Mustafa Kamel. Observers say that such an Egyptian stand is to wait for what the British law will do with the two men and if they will be accused or not.

Previous Stories:
  Yemen refuses to release eight persons accused of terrorism   (3/8/1999)
  Britain expresses readiness to try an extremist   (2/9/1999)
  Yemen accuses Britain of terrorism against it   (2/4/1999)
  Warning issued against executing Yemeni Islamist kidnapper   (1/15/1999)

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