ON
15 July 1994, Samar's uncle, her father's brother, went to have lunch at the
house of a close friend who lived adjacent to the Israeli Embassy. He drove
there in Samar's father's Audi. He always borrowed the car when he was in London,
especially when his brother was not there. But the police decided that this
visit was actually a practice 'dry run' for the bombing of the Israeli Embassy.
Actually, this information emerged because the Alami family volunteered it.
It was they who told the police about her uncle's friend living by the embassy.
Samar was about to go and join her parents on holiday in France at that time
and had no knowledge of the day to day movements of her uncle. However, she
did know that a close family friend lived by the embassy, and it is almost beyond
belief that Samar would ever have been involved in the planning of an explosion
which would so obviously have put members of her family and her family's close
friends at risk. A close friend of Jawad's lives close to the embassy as well.
It is also inconceivable that he would have been involved in a plot to cause
an explosion that would put a member of his communal family at such risk.
Mysteriously, the police seem to have 'lost' the records of what may have actually
been a dry run for the Israeli Embassy bombing. About a month beforehand an
entry security guard saw a car being driven down that road and parked by a woman
acting in manner similar to that of the bomber. Not only was this not followed
up in the same way that possible evidence relating to Samar and Jawad was followed
up, but it emerged that, according to the police, the logs of all the vehicles
entering the high security road during that period had been thrown away by a
cleaner at Scotland.
Very convenient.
MOST
mysteriously, the police claim to have found an ammunition clip in the living
room of Samar and her family's flat. The presence of this clip is strenuously
denied by Samar and by all of her family. This is the only piece of evidence
whose factual existence is denied.
Although the police had taken control of the flat for three and a half days
in January 1995, this clip was not 'discovered' until the end of March during
their second search of the premises There was no one else in the flat when the
clip was 'found', it didn't contain anyone's fingerprints and the police made
no record of where they had found it.
The police were evasive when asked about it initially, and first said it had
been found near a bed in one of the bedrooms. But when questioned later in the
flat by a solicitor they first conferred in a huddle and then told her that
the clip had been found in a corner, under a table in the living room.
This piece of evidence just 'appeared' as so much else either 'disappeared',
got lost, was never traced or was withheld in the 'public interest'.
