Posted on 09/23/2001 11:26:32 PM PDT by Wallaby
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
Three more held in UK; Arrests Trio Questioned At High-security Police Station Paul Kelso The Guardian (London); Guardian Home Pages, Pg. 4 September 24, 2001
British police were yesterday investigating the possibility that the al-Qaida terrorist network is active in the UK, as anti-terrorist branch officers continued to question three people of Arab extraction arrested at the weekend.
The arrests in London and Birmingham, part of the largest security operation in the UK since the Gulf war in 1991, were made following information received from the FBI, which is leading a huge global investigation into the attacks.
French police arrested three men in possession of what investigators believe is uranium-235, a material used in the construction of atomic weapons. The uranium is reported to have been supplied by members of the Russian mafia.
The suspects were being questioned about whether they had been directly involved in aiding and succouring those who had bombed the World Trade Centre, said the home secretary, David Blunkett.
Lotfi Raissi, 27, an Algerian pilot, and his wife Sonia, 25, were arrested at a flat in Colnbrook, Berkshire, near Heathrow airport, in the early hours of Saturday. Mr Raissi's brother Mohammed was arrested in Hounslow, west London, but was released without charge on Saturday afternoon. A fourth man, Abu Imard, 44, a mature student at Aston University in Birmingham, was also arrested. All three suspects were held under the Anti-terrorism Act 2000, and questioned at high-security Paddington Green police station in central London.
Under the act they can be held for up to seven days without charge, providing an order is sought from a magistrate. Yesterday police were granted an order allowing them to detain the suspects until Wednesday.
Mr Raissi was on an FBI watch list' of 200 people sought in connection with the attacks on New York and Washington.
Before his arrest Mr Raissi said he was training at a flying school near Heathrow in order to qualify as a commercial pilot in Europe. Before arriving in the UK 18 months ago, he spent some time learning to fly in Arizona.
It's gone crazy. I've heard stories of FBI agents checking many trainee pilots out, here and in America,' he said. I am an airline pilot in Algeria but over here I am just a student. I have been living here nine months now, with my wife, training for my European conversion.
I do have a relative in America who is training as a pilot and he has been interviewed by the FBI just because he is a Muslim.'
Speaking outside Paddington Green police station, Mr Raissi's uncle Kamal said his nephew was not guilty of any involvement in the terrorist plot. He has been in the UK for 18 months getting the qual ifications to go with the exams he passed in Arizona. He only had one exam to pass before he became a fully qualified pilot. We are decent people, who have nothing to do with terrorist groups.'
Sonia Raissi works for Air France on the customer service desk at Heathrow. Mohammed Raissi's wife works for Saudi Arabian airlines.
Mr Imard, a father of three, moved to the UK from the United States six months ago.
Mr Blunkett confirmed yesterday that the activities of individuals involved in the 21 organisations proscribed under the terrorism act were being closely monitored and action would be taken against them if they step over the line'.
In continental Europe, meanwhile, police made a number of arrests in connection with theUS attacks.
French police arrested three men in possession of what investigators believe is uranium-235, a material used in the construction of atomic weapons. The uranium is reported to have been supplied by members of the Russian mafia.
Raymond Loeb, Serge Salfati and Yves Ekwella were in possession of air tickets to Kazakhstan at the time of their arrest.
Belgian police detained two men and seized bomb-making equipment in raids. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office said 100kg of sulphur and 50 litres of acetone were seized.
It is clear that we have foiled the plans of a European terrorist network, but we do not yet know which objectives were targeted,' he said.
Oh the horror.... the horror of being interviewed by the FBI. I've heard the FBI administers the cold coffee and stale donut torture.
Oh, let me dab my eyes and get the violin music playing.
Planning to use nukes on our troops?
With plutonium you need a shperical implosion to start fission without a "fizzle," which is kind of hard to do. But with U-235 you can build a "gun style" device like Little Boy. We never tested that design until we used it in battle, because it's so dead simple we knew it would just work. If you don't plan to drop it out a plane you don't even need any explosives - just an abandoned apartment building and six stories worth of steel pipe....
Three arrested over uranium 'sample'
Paris: French police have "discreetly" arrested three people and seized five grams of 80 per cent-enriched uranium 235 (U-235) in Paris, the weekly Journal du Dimanche reported.
The newspaper said a French former prisoner, Serge Salfati, had been arrested last week along with two Cameroonians, Yves Ekwella and Raymond Lobe. The latter were suspected of being the brains behind a trafficking arrangement based in eastern Europe.
Quoting American sources, the paper said the seized uranium was believed to have been a sample aimed at eliciting the interest of potential customers such as Iran, Iraq or North Korea or suspected terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.
"At least 10 kilograms of 80 per cent-enriched U-235 is needed to make an atomic bomb," it said, quoting an expert from the Atomic Energy Commission who authenticated the seizure and is trying to determine its origin. The paper said the seizure was a first as previous seizures had only been of radioactive waste.
The U-235 was in a glass container, itself inside a lead cylinder, and its origin could not be known until the energy commission had carried out analyses, the Journal du Dimanche said.
Enriched U-235 can be used in nuclear fission and is used to make nuclear warheads.
Agence France-Presse
These insane death cultists sure do have a keen interest in all aspects of commercial aviation.
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