THE widow of a July 7 suicide bomber was deported from South Africa but bungling British officials allowed her to return there to wage a campaign of terror after assuming a new identity.
Leaked spy cables reveal that Samantha Lewthwaite, whose husband blew himself up on the London Underground in 2005, acquired a new passport with a name that uses a play on the Arabic word for “martyr”.
It allowed her to forge links with senior al-Qaeda figures and led to Lewthwaite — a mother of four nicknamed the “White Widow” — becoming the world’s most wanted woman.
The disclosure will raise fresh questions for MI5 and Scotland Yard, who are already under pressure to explain how the British killer known as Jihadi John was able to travel to Syria to join Isis when he was known for several years to be part of a terrorist network operating in London.
Last week The Sunday Times showed how Lewthwaite, 31, was linked to the same London network as Jihadi John, recently identified as Mohammed Emwazi, 26, a computer science graduate.
Advertisement
Its members were all acolytes of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Africa. They appear to have been trained in countersurveillance techniques and had access to false documents in Britain.
The new details about Lewthwaite, a Muslim convert from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, have emerged from secret documents drawn up by South Africa’s State Security Agency (SSA) and leaked to the Al Jazeera news channel.
They provide one of the most comprehensive accounts of Lewthwaite’s movements and contacts, and link her for the first time to a $1m (£665,000) terrorist plot targeting South Africa with five suicide bombers.
One possible target was a Jewish conference in Cape Town — although the plot, which was overseen by Mohammed, was either foiled or failed to materialise.
Lewthwaite would have come onto MI5’s radar immediately after her husband, Germaine Lindsay, carried out the July 7 attack in London with three other suicide bombers, killing 52 people. She told the media soon afterwards that she condemned Lindsay’s actions.
Advertisement
A leaked SSA report says Lewthwaite first travelled to South Africa under her real name on July 18, 2008, but was “deported to the UK on June 16, 2009”.
The reason for her deportation is not given. However, it was previously unknown that she was forced to return to Britain and explains why she gave birth to her third child at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury in August 2009.
The father was not named on the birth certificate — suggesting it may have been someone she had met in Africa.
The SSA report continues: “Lewthwaite then changed her personal details and acquired a passport in the name of Asmaa Shahidah Bint-Andrews. Bint-Andrews entered South Africa on September 2, 2009.”
The word “Shahidah” can be used to refer to a female martyr or suicide bomber.
Advertisement
It is not clear whether Lewthwaite officially adopted a Muslim name by deed poll and legitimately managed to acquire a new British passport or if she used false papers to return to South Africa. The Home Office said: “We do not comment on individuals nor on security matters.”
Once she was back in South Africa, Lewthwaite activated a third identity — that of a British nurse called Natalie Faye Webb, whose details were stolen — according to the SSA.
The spy cables indicate that Lewthwaite took another al-Qaeda suspect as her second husband. He is thought to be Fahmi Jamal Salim, who uses the alias “Jonathan Drake”.
While she was based in South Africa from 2009-11, Lewthwaite used the cover of a job at Crown Pies, a halal food factory in Johannesburg.
Records of her extensive travel include a British Airways flight to Tanzania with all four of her children in February 2011. Six days later, she crossed by road into neighbouring Kenya, where she is accused of plotting to carry out a string of attacks on tourist targets.
Advertisement
One of her alleged co-conspirators, Jermaine Grant, 32, of Newham, east London, was subsequently arrested at a “bomb factory” in the coastal resort of Mombasa.
The chemicals found by Kenyan police included those used by the July 7 London bombers. The SSA documents reveal that when he was interrogated, Grant provided details of the planned South African attack and his links to Lewthwaite.