Zambia to deport July 7 bombing suspect to UK

(3 Aug 2005)

++AUDIO DISTORTED ON PARTS OF SOUNDBITE+

1. Crowd at press conference
2. Closer shot of crowd
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Levy Mwanawasa, President of Zambia
"I want to address them on this issue, that's the issue of Mr Aswat, the man who is detained for terrorist activities. He was actually held for violating the immigration regulations, but in the cause of the investigations, the alleged terrorist activities were discovered. Now we have had these discussions with the governments of the United Kingdom and United States and it has finally been agreed that this man - he's a Briton - should be deported to his country, the United Kingdom."

STORYLINE:

A man held in Zambia suspected of terror links will be deported to Britain, Zambia's president said Wednesday.

British and American investigators have interrogated Haroon Rashid Aswat - a British citizen of Indian descent - in Zambia and agreed he should be deported to Britain, President Levy Mwanawasa said.

No date for the deportation was given.

Mwanawasa told a news conference that after discussions with the British and US governments "it has finally been agreed that this man - he's a Briton - should be deported to his country, the United Kingdom."

Zambian authorities have been questioning Aswat, 31, about 20 phone calls made with some of the July 7 bombers on his South African cell phone.

Mwanawasa said "it was alleged that he was involved in terrorist activities."

But British newspaper reports quoting British intelligence sources have in recent days played down the possibility Aswat masterminded the London bombings.

Aswat grew up in Dewsbury, in Britain's West Yorkshire, the home of Mohammed Sidique Khan, one of the July 7 bombers.

He was reportedly once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Muslim preacher who is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder.

Aswat has also been implicated in a 1999 plot to establish a terrorist training camp in the western U.S. state of Oregon, hostage-taking in Yemen and funding terror training in Afghanistan.

Zambian police said intelligence agents followed Aswat to Lusaka after he entered the country from Botswana and arrested him at a house in the capital on July 20.

Before he was detained in Zambia, Aswat had been in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Zambian officials also said Aswat made frequent trips to Mozambique and Botswana.

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