BOTH
the cars used in the bombings were found to be carrying false number plates.
The Audi used in the Israeli Embassy bombing was traced by the police. It had
been bought at a car auction in Milton Keynes on 15 June 1994 by a man using
the name 'George'. The Triumph Acclaim used in the Balfour House bombing was
traced back to a car auction in Birmingham on 13th June 1994, where it was purchased
by a man called 'George Davis'.
A distinctive old white BMW was also seen at that Milton Keynes auction. The
police painstakingly traced the owner of every single old BMW in Britain which
matched its description, and eventually they came up with Jawad.
Jawad had gone to that auction. He had gone with a recent social acquaintance
of
his and Samar's called Rida Mughrabi. Mughrabi contacted Jawad on 14 June and
asked him if he could help him buy a Renault. They drove together to a car
auction in Northampton later that day, in the early evening, but they didn't
find
anything worth buying for the £1000 Mughrabi had to spend. So they went
to the
auction in Milton Keynes the next day, 15 June, which is when Mughrabi bought
the Audi. Considering the similar false names given, he may also have been
involved in the purchase of the Triumph from Birmingham on 13 June, although
Jawad was not present at that auction and Mughrabi did not mention anything
about having bought a car at an auction the previous day when he contacted Jawad
on 14 June.
When Jawad was driving up with Rida Mughrabi to the Northampton car auction
on 14 June, he was stopped by the police on the M1 for speeding. He was so
unconcerned about drawing attention to himself that apparently he had actually
overtaken a police car. There was nothing in what he was doing that led him
to be
worried and he showed his driving licence to the policeman who stopped him.
The fingerprints and handwriting on the purchase documents of both cars, and
the descriptions of the purchasers as given by witnesses, match none of the
defendants. There is no trace of the people who bought the cars and neither
is it known where they were stored and made into car bombs. Quite simply, Rida
Mughrabi was involved in the bombings and Jawad was duped.
He clearly had no idea of the intended use of the car and there was no reason
he should have. He took Mughrabi to the auction for the same reason he often
took people to car auctions -- to advise them and help them to buy a good, cheap
car. Cars were his hobby. In ten years he had been through about twenty five
second-hand cars, one after the other. He was obsessed. While he was a student
at Leicester University he and his friends had started going to car auctions
around the country, buying and selling second-hand cars to make a bit of money.
He was the person a range of friends and acquaintances would turn to for help
buying a car. He had bought about a hundred cars like this for people he knew,
including for his uncle, several of his friends and many, many for himself.
In fact, he had gone with Rida Mughrabi to a car auction before, in Northampton
in 1993, when Mughrabi had bought a Renault 25.
Nevertheless, Jawad had been at the wrong place with the wrong person. He was
put under sustained police surveillance from September 1994, at least, onwards
and then arrested at home in January 1995 in a 7.00am police raid. The police
made multiple arrests on 17 January under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, raiding
the homes of four other people of Palestinian origin who had been observed to
be his 'associates'. Their homes were searched without any legal representatives
being present. One of his friends was also arrested by the army while she was
on holiday in Israel. Those arrested in Britain included his friend Samar Alami,
his friend and business partner Mahmoud Abu- Wardeh and Mrs Nadia Zekra whom
he only knew slightly because he sometimes used to play football with her son.
Samar had never met her, indeed until they met for the first time in Holloway
prison she had only seen Nadia once, and that was the back of her head at one
of the magistrates court hearings. It was these four who would end up standing
trial at the Old Bailey almost two years later.
In January though, only Jawad and Nadia were charged with conspiracy to cause
explosions in the United Kingdom. They were detained as 'Category A'prisoners,
imprisoned in London at Belmarsh and Holloway respectively. The others, including
Samar and Mahmoud, were released without charge and allowed to go home.
Successive police swoops were made in Britain over the next few months as the
police concentrated their attention on
the same group of people.
Samar's sister and Jawad's wife Elizabeth were among those arrested. Jawad's
friend who had been detained in Israel was arrested when she returned to Britain,
she was detained until the next day but then released without charge. The police
taunted Elizabeth with suggestions of her young son being blown up and they
ridiculed Jawad's supposed religious habits. Elizabeth was only released on
condition that she go and stay with her father, who is a retired police officer.
These sweeping arrests were made under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
The PTA allows suspects to be arrested because of mere suspicion, or undisclosed
'intelligence information' which need not relate to any specific crime and is
then not normally admissible in court. Those so arrested can be denied access
to a lawyer for the first 46 hours of their detention and may be questioned
without one. They can be detained for up to seven days without being charged
and without access to a court. The PTA also allowed the homes of all those arrested
to be searched without any legal representatives being present.
In March 1995 Samar was arrested again by the Anti-Terrorist Branch, also in
a 7.00am raid. She too was charged with being involved in the conspiracy and
was remanded in custody at Holloway prison, where she met Nadia for the first
time. Samar's sister was also arrested, but later released without charge, and
their shared family home was again searched by the police without anyone being
present.
Samar was released on bail a couple of months later in May. More than fifty
letters were written in support of her bail application and the judge granting
it said that he had never seen such serious and significant tributes to any
single individual. Nadia was also released on bail in May.
But then, in June, Samar was arrested again after the police investigated a
tiny, one metre square, locker unit at Nationwide Storage in west London. This
small locker contained a small quantity of TATP explosive powder, a little more
made into two tiny basic explosive devices, two guns, some chemicals, timers,
electronic circuitry, an aerial, some political books and magazines and various
other items. The three timers were linked to an order of six bought under a
false name in May/June 1994 and as the judge confirmed, "There is absolutely
nothing to connect any of these defendants with the purchase of the timers."
The chemicals in the locker turned out to have been part of a much larger order
collected from Hays Chemicals in Birmingham in June 1994 by someone giving the
name 'G Davis'. The contents of this locker unit were to play the major role
in the prosecution case despite the fact that nothing in the locker has ever
been connected with the Israeli Embassy or Balfour House explosions or with
any others planned elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Remember, the explosive used in the bombings has never been identified. There
is no evidence that it was TATP. Indeed, the available evidence (that is, the
evidence which was not covered up by PII hearings) shows that TATP was specifically
ruled out by the British and Israeli government scientists as early as September,
1994. The logic is that the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House bombs were not
made from the Hays Chemicals. Nevertheless, the discovery of the locker led
to Samar being rearrested, in June 1995. She was charged with what the prosecution
claimed were 'new' offences that they alleged she had committed whilst on bail,
namely the possession of the firearms and explosives found in the locker. This
argument succeeded, the new charges were brought and she was remanded in custody
at Holloway again. It was only later, in August 1995, that the prosecution admitted
the charges were all part of the same case.
Mahmoud Abu-Wardeh was arrested later than any of the other defendants, in the
summer of 1995, and was kept on remand at Belmarsh prison until he was acquitted
at the end of the trial in December 1996.
