Lewthwaite
She was a “shy” girl from Buckinghamshire but the name Samantha Lewthwaite is once again being linked to a global atrocity.
The media have linked her to the Kenyan shopping centre attack.
Speculation has been fuelled by the
Kenyan foreign minister who said one of the militants from the
Somali-based al-Shabab group was a British woman.
And suspicion was heightened when international crime agency Interpol issued a wanted persons notice for her arrest.
But the warrant – requested by the
Kenyans – relates to separate terror charges dating from 2011 and is not
linked to the Nairobi siege.
There has been no confirmation of Ms.
Lewthwaite’s involvement, either as an attacker, organiser or
fundraiser. Al-Shabab has denied that any women were involved.
Whitehall officials continue to advise
caution about reports linking her to the attack, says the BBC’s security
correspondent Frank Gardner.
A photo from a fake South African passport alleged to belong to Samantha Lewthwaite under an assumed name.
Her notoriety though, confirmed by the Interpol warrant, is not in doubt.
Ms. Lewthwaite, 29, was first thrust
into the spotlight after the July 7 bombings in London in 2005, as the
widow of bomber Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people when he blew up a
Piccadilly Line Tube train near King’s Cross.
A Muslim convert dubbed the “White
Widow” by much of the media, she has no terrorism record in the UK but
was on the run from Kenyan Police before the Westgate attack, allegedly
using a South Africa passport over suspected links to a terrorist cell
that planned to bomb the country’s coast
Interpol’s red notice is a recognition
that she is now considered an international threat, not just someone who
should be regarded as a passport fraudster, says BBC home affairs
correspondent Dominic Casciani.
The notice says Ms. Lewthwaite is
“wanted by Kenya on charges of being in possession of explosives and
conspiracy to commit a felony dating back to December 2011.”
After the July 7 attacks, Ms. Lewthwaite
condemned her husband’s actions as “abhorrent”, saying trips to radical
mosques had “poisoned his mind.”
“How these people could have turned him and poisoned his mind is dreadful,” she told The Sun. “He was an innocent, naive and simple man. I suppose he must have been an ideal candidate,” she said.
But not long after the attack she disappeared.
She was known to be in Kenya and, last
year, officials said she had fled to Somalia and the police were hunting
a woman who used several identities, including hers.
Lewthwaite attended the Grange School in Aylesbury.
She spent much of her life in the
Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury, although her very early years were
spent in Northern Ireland.
Born to English soldier Andy Lewthwaite –
who met and married Christine Allen while serving in Northern Ireland
during the 1970s – she spent her childhood on the Whyte Acres estate in
Banbridge, County Down.
Ms Lewthwaite was still at primary
school when her family moved to Aylesbury, where they lived in a modest
terraced house. Her parents separated in 1995.
Raj Khan, an Aylesbury councillor who has known her for decades, told the BBC she was an average girl.
Samantha Lewthwaite married July 7 bomber Germaine Lindsay in 2002
“I knew her when she was a child,” he
said. “She was very innocent, lacking confidence, shy and very easy to
get on with. She was a follower not a leader.”
It is understood she has had little
contact with relatives in Northern Ireland, including her 85-year-old
grandmother Elizabeth Allen, since her conversion to Islam.
- Culled from www.bbc.co.uk
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