Post by Admin on Mar 9, 2014 19:49:22 GMT
Wednesday 13 July 2005
Charles Clarke today denied that any of the four suspects in the terrorist bomb attacks on London last week had been previously arrested.
The four suspected bombers, all Britons from West Yorkshire, were described as "cleanskins" who were unknown to the police or security services, but Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, today claimed Mr Clarke had told him this was not the case.
He told reporters after a EU interior ministers meeting on counterterrorism that some of the team had been subject to "partial arrest" in spring 2004 but released in the hope of catching a wider network.
The home secretary denied the allegation. "It is completely and utterly untrue. I am absolutely staggered he should make this assertion," Mr Clarke told Sky News.
"I have not even talked to Mr Sarkozy about this ... I don't understand where he could have got this from."
Charles Clarke today denied that any of the four suspects in the terrorist bomb attacks on London last week had been previously arrested.
The four suspected bombers, all Britons from West Yorkshire, were described as "cleanskins" who were unknown to the police or security services, but Nicolas Sarkozy, the French interior minister, today claimed Mr Clarke had told him this was not the case.
He told reporters after a EU interior ministers meeting on counterterrorism that some of the team had been subject to "partial arrest" in spring 2004 but released in the hope of catching a wider network.
The home secretary denied the allegation. "It is completely and utterly untrue. I am absolutely staggered he should make this assertion," Mr Clarke told Sky News.
"I have not even talked to Mr Sarkozy about this ... I don't understand where he could have got this from."