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Police "ignored'' 7/7 warning

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: British police are facing more embarrassment over allegations of security lapses in the run-up to the July 7 London bombings after a computer expert, who claims to have known at least two suicide bombers, said he had warned the local police about their activities two years before the attacks.

Martin Gilbertson (45) told The Guardian that for three years he worked for an Islamic bookshop and a youth centre attended by Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer both of whom perpetrated the attacks. They were among the four suicide bombers who blew themselves up on Underground trains on July 7 last year as part of a series of coordinated attacks on London's transport network.

Mr. Gilbertson said his job was to produce anti-western propaganda videos, secure Web sites and encrypt E-mails for a group of Muslims involved in running the bookshop and the centre, both located in Beeston, West Yorkshire, home to Khan and Tanweer.

"I was doing it because I was on crap wages... I've got kids to feed,'' he said.

But, at one point, he became "so sick and tired'' of what was going on that he "fled'' and decided to go to the police. "By October 2003, he says he was so alarmed by what he was producing ... .that he went to the local Holbeck police station, saying he had material and names he wanted to deliver to anti-terrorist officers. He was told to post his material, and did so, to West Yorkshire police headquarters in Wakefield. The package contained DVD material he had compiled for circulation by the bookshop, a list of names including Khan and Tanweer and a covering letter giving a contact telephone number.

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