Computer expert tried to warn police about London bombers in 2003
AFP
Date: 06-24-06
LONDON (AFP) - A computer expert who worked with two of the London suicide bombers contacted police nearly two years before the attacks to warn them of their activities.
Martin Gilbertson, 45, said he produced anti-Western propaganda videos, secure web sites and encrypted emails for Muslims who used a youth centre and Islamic bookshop attended by Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer.
He told the The Guardian Saturday he also set up security firewalls to protect both places from outside interference while assigned to work at a nearby community centre affiliated to both places.
But he then became so concerned about what he was being asked to do, he contacted police about his concerns and posted them material, including a DVD and a list of names. Khan and Tanweer were both said to be on the list.
But despite leaving a contact number and address, Gilbertson claims to have heard nothing until after Khan, Tanweer and two others set off explosives on London's public transport system on July 7, killing themselves and 52 others.
"I wish I could have had some access to MI5 (Britain's domestic security agency)," he was quoted as saying. "I probably could have got them in there before the bombs went off."
In a front-page article and double-page spread inside, The Guardian details Gilbertson's activities for Khan and Tanweer in their home town of Beeston, near the city of Leeds, northern England.
Some of the presentations he edited showed children mutilated or killed by US or Israeli forces in Iraq or the Palestinian territories, he explained.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesman was quoted as saying that it would be "almost impossible" to find out what happened to a particular item of mail, or to say whether it made its way into the intelligence system.
London's Metropolitan Police declined to comment on Gilbertson's claims but confirmed a telephone number provided by him to the newspaper was for one of its anti-terrorist officers.
There is no evidence to suggest that any of the workers at the Islamic bookshop or the youth centre were implicated in the July 7 attacks.
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