Egypt frees man held in bombings
Cairo, Egypt An Egyptian chemist freed Tuesday after three weeks in custody for questioning about deadly bombings in London said he casually knew two of the attackers. He called one of them “very kind and very nice.”
After his release, the clean-shaven Magdy el-Nashar told reporters outside his home that he had nothing to do with the July 7 mass-transit attacks, which killed 52 people and the four bombers.
“I am very happy for my innocence and Egypt’s innocence, my first country, but sad for what happened in Britain, my second country,” said el-Nashar, who had studied at Britain’s University of Leeds since 2000, earning a doctorate in biochemistry in April.
He was detained in Cairo on July 14 after Britain notified Egyptian authorities they suspected he may have had links to some of the attackers, three of whom were from Leeds.
The 33-year-old chemist said he met one of the bombers, Jamaican-born Jermaine Lindsay, in Leeds during the last month of the Muslim period of fasting, Ramadan, which was in October and November.
El-Nashar said that in June, Lindsay asked for help finding a place to live in Leeds, saying he wanted to move there from London with his wife and child.
El-Nashar, a Muslim, said he helped Lindsay because he was a “new convert (to Islam). He was very kind and very nice.”
El-Nashar said Islam was not an issue in the attacks, and he called the suicide bombers “young, emotional and ignorant.”
El-Nashar then issued an appeal for world governments to “stop oppressing people, killing and bombing people so that ignorant and emotional people don’t have an excuse for such activities.”
The Interior Ministry said el-Nashar was freed after authorities found no evidence against him. London police had no comment on the release.
El-Nashar called his detention “a nightmare,” especially when interrogators suggested he was “the mastermind behind the London bombings.”
Still, he said he was detained in a hotel with his own “air-conditioned room and excellent food.”
Charter pilot, refueler under investigation
Rome The pilot of a Tunisian charter plane that crashed off the coast of Sicily and the driver of the refueling truck that serviced the plane before takeoff have been placed under investigation, news reports said Tuesday.
Thirteen people were killed in Saturday’s crash of the Tuninter ATR-72 and 23 people survived. Three people were missing.
Port Cmdr. Vincenzo Pace told SKY TG24 TV that searchers were finding seats, pieces of wreckage and personal items being pulled eastward by currents and wind.
Both engines gave out within minutes of each other before the crash, and prosecutors have been looking into the possibility that impurities in the fuel or lack of fuel might have contributed.
Missing girl’s mother accused of harassment
Oranjestad, Aruba A man who had been detained in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway complained to authorities Tuesday that her mother has been harassing him.
Deepak Kalpoe, a 21-year-old Suriname national, asked that Beth Holloway Twitty stay away from him, said police Inspector Carlos Sarge.
Sarge said police would ask her to stay away from Kalpoe.
Holloway Twitty declined to comment on the complaint. “I’m just going to try to continue getting answers about my daughter,” she said.