Neighbors of British Terror Suspects Skeptical of Charges
By JANE PERLEZ
BIRMINGHAM, England, Feb. 1 — Many residents in the area where nine people were arrested and accused of planning to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier said Thursday that they were unconvinced of the accusations against them.
By most neighborhood accounts, for example, one suspect, Amjad Mahmood, is a father of two in his late 20s who has worked tirelessly to keep his father’s grocery business going and who has shown no discernible interest in Islamic affairs.
He is cleanshaven, wears jeans and, like some young men in the Alum Rock section of this diverse city, seems more secular than religious, people who know him said. He rarely attended the mosque a block away from his house, they said.
For those reasons, and because of recent instances of the British police arresting suspects and then releasing them for lack of evidence linking them to terrorism, people here said they were not convinced of the accusations against Mr. Mahmood and the other eight suspects. The public and startling nature of the arrests in predawn raids made them angry and dismayed, they said.
In what the British authorities called a joint operation by the security service MI5, a newly formed West Midlands counterterrorism team and West Midlands police, the nine men were arrested in raids in poor, mainly South Asian neighborhoods of Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, with one million people. >>>cont
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BIRMINGHAM, England, Feb. 1 — Many residents in the area where nine people were arrested and accused of planning to kidnap, torture and behead a British Muslim soldier said Thursday that they were unconvinced of the accusations against them.
By most neighborhood accounts, for example, one suspect, Amjad Mahmood, is a father of two in his late 20s who has worked tirelessly to keep his father’s grocery business going and who has shown no discernible interest in Islamic affairs.
He is cleanshaven, wears jeans and, like some young men in the Alum Rock section of this diverse city, seems more secular than religious, people who know him said. He rarely attended the mosque a block away from his house, they said.
For those reasons, and because of recent instances of the British police arresting suspects and then releasing them for lack of evidence linking them to terrorism, people here said they were not convinced of the accusations against Mr. Mahmood and the other eight suspects. The public and startling nature of the arrests in predawn raids made them angry and dismayed, they said.
In what the British authorities called a joint operation by the security service MI5, a newly formed West Midlands counterterrorism team and West Midlands police, the nine men were arrested in raids in poor, mainly South Asian neighborhoods of Birmingham, Britain’s second-largest city, with one million people. >>>cont
Link Here
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