Suspected suicide bomber had accomplice, both carried British passports, Israeli police say
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1) The man who carried out the suicide attack early Wednesday, killing three bystanders in Tel Aviv, carried a British passport, police said.
2) Assaf Mohammed Hanif entered Israel from the Gaza Strip, the first such case in 89 attacks over the past 31 months, police said. Gaza is fenced in, unlike the West Bank.
3) They said he carried a British passport, as did a second bomber, Omar Khan Sharif, police said. Israel TV channels showed the passports on their evening news broadcasts. Police said Sharif's bomb did not go off, and he escaped.
4) In London, the British Foreign Office said it was aware of the reports.
5) ``We're in continuing close contact with the Israeli authorities on security matters. We have no comment to make on this particular allegation,'' a spokesman at the British foreign office said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.


Britain, Israel cooperating to find missing bomber, investigate Tel Aviv attack
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1) Britain is helping Israel in the hunt for the suspected accomplice of a suicide bomber who killed three people in a Tel Aviv pub, the British ambassador said Thursday. The accomplice and the bomber carried British passports.
2) The attack marked the first time in 31 months of fighting that a foreign national carried out a bombing, and that the assailant set out from the fenced-in, heavily guarded Gaza Strip. All other suicide bombers have been Palestinians from the West Bank, which has a porous frontier with Israel.
3) In all, there have been 89 suicide bombings since September 2000.
4) The Tel Aviv bomber, Asif Mohammed Hanif, and his suspected accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, were able to pass from the Gaza Strip to Israel because they carried British passports. Palestinian residents of Gaza can only cross into Israel with special permits that are rarely granted because of security concerns.
5) The attack has raised fears that international Islamic terror has managed to infiltrate in to Israel. ``The nightmare scenario has come true,'' wrote military analyst Alex Fishman in the Yediot Aharonot daily.
6) ``These terrorists did exactly what happened in the United States on September 11,'' Fishman wrote. ``Foreigners entered, exploited the welcome the were given as tourists, and blew themselves up among us.''
7) Fishman argued that this development is not only of grave concern to the Israeli security establishment, but should also worry the Palestinian Authority which is expected to crack down on militants as part of a new peace plan.
8) Hanif killed three people when he blew himself up Wednesday outside Mike's Place, a pub on Tel Aviv's promenade. Sharif shed his bomb, which malfunctioned, and escaped, according to police. A search for Sharif continues.
9) ``We think that the terrorists had British passports, which is something especially sad,'' British ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles told Israel Radio.
10) ``Since yesterday, there has been intensive contact between the Israeli and British security and intelligence services and we are now checking the passports and investigating the entire incident. There is full and intensive cooperation,'' he said.
11) British Foreign Office officials did not rule out that the documents were forged, but said its investigation was ongoing.
12) Ely Karmon, an Israeli counterterrorism expert, said the British passports allowed Hanif and Sharif to circumvent Israel's tight Gaza Strip security and that militant groups might use this method in the future. But Israel will also learn lessons from the incident and take precautions, he added.
13) On Thursday, blinds were drawn at the Hanif residence in Hounslow, a suburb in west London not far from Heathrow Airport. Except for the roar of planes overhead, the ethnically mixed neighborhood remained quiet.
14) Hanif's brother, Taz, told the British newspaper, The Sun, that his brother was not the kind of person who would carry out a suicide bombing. ``Anyone who knew him would tell you. He was just a big teddy bear,'' Taz said.
15) Neighbors described the bomber as a loner and the family as observant Muslims.
16) Militant groups have tried in the past to recruit foreign nationals for attacks in Israel.
17) In April 1996, a British citizen working for the Lebanese Hizbollah group was critically wounded when a bomb he was handling blew up prematurely in a Jerusalem hotel room. He was arrested and later returned to Lebanon in a prisoner exchange.
18) Richard C. Reid, a British citizen convicted in an American court in February of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with a bomb planted in his shoe, also passed through Israel and the Gaza Strip.
19) One of those killed in the pub bombing was Dominique Hess, who had immigrated from France and worked as a waitress at the pub. Israel's Histadrut Labor Federation will allow El Al, the national airline, to break a general strike to fly her body back to Paris on Friday, Israel Radio reported. rpm-kl


Neighbors mystified by reports London man is Tel Aviv suicide bomber
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1) Asif Hanif grew up in a quiet London suburb, did well at school, studied business and left home for university.
2) This week, Israeli officials say, the 21-year-old blew himself up outside a Tel Aviv bar, killing three other people.
3) Residents of his old neighborhood struggled Thursday to connect the boy from sleepy Hounslow _ an occasional worshipper at a mainstream, multicultural mosque _ with a militant willing to kill and die for the Palestinian cause.
4) ``As I know him, he was honorable and very polite and I never heard about any kind of politics from him,'' said neighbor Mohammad Hashmi. ``I can't believe it.''
5) Israeli authorities say Hanif and 27-year-old Omar Khan Sharif from Derby in central England carried out Wednesday's bombing outside Mike's Place, a popular oceanfront bar in Tel Aviv. Hanif died; police believe Sharif fled when his bomb failed to detonate.
6) The men's British passports were shown on Israeli television and reproduced in British newspapers Thursday.
7) British officials said they were investigating whether the passports were genuine and could not yet confirm the men's identities. London's Metropolitan Police said anti-terrorist officers were assisting Israeli police in the search for Sharif.
8) Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of the Islamic militant group al-Muhajiroun, said Thursday that both men had studied with him.
9) Al-Muhajiroun recruits on university campuses, encourages members to join armed struggles abroad, and said its goal is to make Britain an Islamic state.
10) ``I knew both of them...as students,'' Bakri Mohammed said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. television.
11) Asked whether he approved of the suicide attack, the sheik said: ``It's not right to me to condemn a self-sacrifice operation such as those that take place in Palestine against occupying forces.''
12) Wednesday's attack _ claimed jointly by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades _ was the first suicide bombing by a non-Palestinian in 31 months of fighting.
13) Israeli authorities believe Hanif and Sharif set out from the fenced-in, heavily guarded Gaza Strip rather than the West Bank, which has a porous frontier with Israel and has been the starting point for most suicide attacks. As Britons, they could circumvent the tight security that keeps most residents of Gaza from entering Israel.
14) Hanif would be an atypical suicide bomber. Born in Pakistan, he moved to Britain as a child and grew up in Hounslow. His family lives in a crescent of modest modern red brick homes, quiet save for the roar of jets landing at nearby Heathrow Airport.
15) Residents of the ethnically mixed neighborhood say it is a friendly street, with the usual problems of occasional burglary and rowdy teenagers.
16) There was no sign of trouble from Asif Hanif.
17) Kevin Prunty, head teacher of the Hounslow school Hanif attended from 1992 to 2000, said he had been ``a well-liked, a respected pupil'' who completed a course in business studies.
18) After school, Hanif enrolled at the University of Damascus in Syria, Prunty said. Hanif's brother was quoted by a newspaper as saying he was studying Arabic and intended to return to teach children in England.
19) His brother, Taz, was quoted by The Sun as saying Asif was not the kind of person to carry out a suicide bombing.
20) ``Anyone who knew him would tell you. He was just a big teddy bear,'' he said.
21) Taz Hanif told the newspaper he and his brother had last spoken two weeks ago, when Hanif said he was fine and still at university.
22) Several Britons have been convicted of involvement in Islamist terrorism, including Richard Reid _ sentenced to life in prison in the United States for trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes _ and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, convicted in Pakistan for the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.
23) British anti-terrorist investigations have focused on the Finsbury Park Mosque in north London and its fiery _ and now expelled _ cleric, Abu Hamza al-Masri.
24) Al-Masri, who is fighting an attempt by authorities to deport him, had no comment on the suspects, his spokesman Abu Aziz said.
25) The radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, which claims to have sent followers to fight in Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan, said neither Hanif nor Sharif had been a member, and neither was known to the group.
26) Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said Hanif had been seen distributing pro-Palestinian leaflets outside a mosque in Hounslow.
27) But Hashmi, a former imam at the Hounslow Jamia Mosque attended by Hanif, he had never heard the young man speak about Palestine. He said Hanif had not stood out as a leader at the mosque.
28) The mosque's chair, Suleman Chachia, said Hanif had attended prayers for at least the last two years and had ``seemed a very pleasant chap. He didn't seem aggressive at all.''
29) He said suicide bombing was ``un-Islamic and we condemn it completely.
30) ``We are not only shocked, we are a bit apprehensive when people hear about our mosque in connection with this,'' Chachia said. ``It's just unfortunate that he was one of the chaps who occasionally visited the mosque.''
31) (jl-rb)


Israelis worried by infiltration of international terrorists as police search for British bomber
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1) Police scoured the Tel Aviv area Friday for a British man who fled from a bar where his British accomplice blew himself up, and detectives responded to dozens of calls from residents who reported seeing the man.
2) Israeli terrorism experts warned that foreign involvement could catapult the 2{ year conflict with the Palestinians to a new level.
3) Police identified the attacker who blew up ``Mike's Place,'' a Tel Aviv bar, early Wednesday as Asif Hanif, 21, from a London suburb. The blast, the first of 89 suicide bombings in the current round of violence carried out by a foreigner, killed a waitress and two musicians at the pub.
4) Then police disclosed that another bomber, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, also British, escaped after his explosive charge malfunctioned.
5) ``The nightmare scenario has come true,'' wrote military analyst Alex Fishman in the Yediot Ahronot daily. ``These terrorists did exactly what happened in the United States on Sept. 11.''
6) Analysts agreed that foreign involvement in the already bloody Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a grave development, but there was little surprise.
7) ``The international terror movement has been interested in Israel for a long time,'' said Yoni Fighel of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
8) Fighel said that this is not the first time that there have been attempts to infiltrate foreigners into Israel. ``What is new is that a British citizen has been prepared to push the button and explode,'' he said.
9) In April 1996, a British citizen working for the Lebanese Hezbollah group was critically wounded when a bomb he was handling blew up prematurely in a Jerusalem hotel room. He was arrested and later returned to Lebanon in a prisoner exchange.
10) Richard C. Reid, a British citizen convicted in an American court in February of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with a bomb planted in his shoe, earlier passed through Israel and the Gaza Strip.
11) While responsibility for the Tel Aviv attack was jointly claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, associated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah party, and the violent Islamic organization Hamas, Fighel said that it was likely that the Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, was involved.
12) Israeli media reports on Friday quoted a senior army officer as saying that the bombing was likely planned abroad and that it was possible that the explosive device also had been manufactured in another country.
13) ``While there is no hard evidence, I see the patterns, and the fingerprints of Hezbollah are all over this,'' said Fighel.
14) Hezbollah and Israel fought a fierce guerrilla war for 18 years when Israel patrolled a strip of Lebanese territory, pulling out in May 2000. Hezbollah continues to call for Israel's destruction.
15) Violent Palestinian groups have pledged to keep up their attacks against Israel, despite a denunciation of terrorism from new Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.
16) The groups _ Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front and others _ have offices in Damascus, Syria, where some of their orders originate. The radical groups also raise money from foreign sources. However, there have been no reports of recruitment through the offices abroad.
17) The bomber, Hanif, spent some time in Syria. One of Hanif's former teachers in Hounslow, England, Kevin Prunty, said the young man had enrolled at Syria's University of Damascus.
18) While others feared escalation, Anat Kurz, a Tel Aviv University expert on Islamic terror, said that the introduction of foreigners is a reflection of the difficulties faced by Palestinian organizations because of extensive Israeli military operations.
19) ``It is possible that ... this is an attempt to overcome operational problems by recruiting outside help,'' she said.
20) Sharif, the failed bomber, remained at large despite a police manhunt that focused on south Tel Aviv, a rundown area popular with foreign workers.
21) Pictures of Sharif were pasted to the dashboards of police vehicles, and flyers with pictures of his passport were handed out in streets and shopping centers. By Friday, police had received more than 100 phone calls from people in the Tel Aviv area who reported seeing the man.
22) Israelis also raised questions about the British connection to radical Islam.
23) ``We have to ask where they come from,'' said Danny Yatom, a former head of Israel's Mossad spy agency and now a Labor party lawmaker, in an interview on Israel's Channel 10 TV.
24) Yatom said that people attending certain London mosques were exposed to incitement and calls to join an international ``jihad'' (holy war), singling out the fiery Abu Hamza al-Masri, cleric of the north London Finsbury Park Mosque, later expelled, who has been the focus of British anti-terrorist investigations. ``The British know what is growing in these mosques,'' Yatom said.
25) British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom on Thursday and expressed shock that a British citizen carried out the attack, an Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said.
26) Shalom called on Straw to work to end the incitement of British Muslims and to bring those involved in the attack to justice.
27) ``The British need to do more,'' Fighel said. ``The British Islamic radicals are very active. It really stands out.'' pvs/jak


British police arrest six in connection with Tel Aviv bombing
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1) Police arrested six people in central England and London in connection with a Tel Aviv suicide bombing believed to have been carried out by a British man, Scotland Yard said Saturday.
2) Officers arrested two men and two women in Derbyshire and another woman in nearby Nottinghamshire on Friday, police said. Early Saturday they arrested a man in London.
3) Scotland Yard said the suspects were apprehended under the Terrorism Act but did not release their names or any details of what they allegedly did. They were not charged with any crime.
4) Three people were killed in the explosion Wednesday at Mike's Place, a Tel Aviv bar.
5) Israeli police identified the bomber as Asif Hanif, 21, from the London suburb of Hounslow. They said Omar Khan Sharif, 27, of Derby in central England, fled when his bomb failed to detonate.
6) Britain's Treasury chief, Gordon Brown, has instructed the Bank of England to freeze all British bank accounts belonging to Hanif and Sharif.
7) Israeli police have been searching for Sharif since the attack, focusing their manhunt on south Tel Aviv, a rundown area popular with foreign workers. Scotland Yard did not specify whether any of those arrested in Derbyshire, which includes his hometown Derby, were related to or associated with him. Neighbors have said Sharif was seen near his Derby home days before the attack.
8) Police said the suspects were detained ``as part of ongoing inquiries being carried out following a terrorist incident in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.''
9) Detectives were bringing them to police stations in central London. No other details were immediately available.
10) The bombing, the first of 89 suicide bombings in the current round of Israeli-Palestinian violence carried out by a foreigner, killed a waitress and two musicians at the pub.
11) The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades both claimed responsibility.
12) In Britain, the militant Islamic group Al-Muhajiroun said Sharif had attended one or two lectures given by the group's leader, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed.
13) The group recruits on university campuses and encourages members to join armed struggles abroad. It says its goal is to make Britain an Islamic state. A spokesman denied that the men were members of Al-Muhajiroun.
14) Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an organization that aims to unite all Muslims in a caliphate ruled by Islamic Shariah law, denied a report in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper that Sharif was a member.
15) Imran Waheed, the group's leader in Britain, said neither Hanif nor Sharif had any links with the organization, which is outlawed in several countries for alleged extremism.
16) (bg-ej)


British bombers smuggled explosives into Israel from Jordan
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1) Two Britons involved in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last week smuggled their explosives into Israel from Jordan, hidden inside a copy of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, the Israeli defense minister said.
2) Israel's police chief, meanwhile, said he expected more foreign nationals to try to carry out attacks in Israel. ``The assessment of security officials is that the involvement of outsiders in attacks is only going to increase,'' the chief, Shlomo Aharonishky, said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post daily published Monday.
3) The minister, Shaul Mofaz, told the weekly Cabinet meeting that the two men, Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, apparently were recruited by a Syrian-based terror group while they were studying Arabic in Damascus.
4) Several weeks ago, they traveled from Jordan, via the Allenby Bridge crossing to the West Bank and then to Israel, Mofaz told the ministers Sunday. After entering Israel, the two crossed into the Gaza Strip for talks with local Palestinian militants, Mofaz said.
5) Hanif blew himself up at the entrance to a Tel Aviv bar last Wednesday, killing a waitress and two musicians. Sharif fled after his bomb malfunctioned and is believed to have gone into hiding in the West Bank or Gaza.
6) It was the first suicide attack carried out by a foreigner during 31 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
7) Mofaz told the Cabinet the bombing meant Israel would have to tighten checks on foreigners visiting Palestinian territory.
8) Hanif was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Britain as a child. Sharif was born in Britain to immigrant parents. Both studied with the leader of a fundamentalist group in London. scw-kl


Body found in Tel Aviv identified as that of wouldbe British suicide bomber
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1) Israeli forensics experts on Monday identified a body that had washed up on a Mediterranean beach as that of a Briton who tried to blow himself up near a Tel Aviv pub, but ran away when his bomb failed to go off.
2) The experts said the man died of drowning.
3) The identification of Omar Khan Sharif, 27, of Derby in central England, was made with the help of DNA samples provided by the family and brought to the Israeli Forensics Institute on Monday by British detectives, said Dr. Yehuda Hiss, the head of the institute.
4) Sharif's body was found on May 12. Israel police confirmed the identification of the body but would not say when Sharif died.
5) Sharif was the alleged accomplice of Asif Hanif, 21, from the London suburb of Hounslow. On April 30, Hanif set off explosives he was carrying at Mike's Place, a popular Tel Aviv bar that caters to foreigners and immigrants, killing himself, a waitress and two musicians.
6) Sharif's explosives failed to go off, and police launched a large-scale search. It was not clear whether Sharif was injured at the time of the attack. pe-kl


Journalists questioned in connection with April 30 Tel Aviv bombing: Israeli security
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1) Israeli security interrogated several foreign journalists in connection with a suicide bombing attack by a Briton in Tel Aviv on April 30, an Israeli security source said Monday.
2) The bomber blew himself up in front of Mike's Place, a popular Tel Aviv bar near the U.S. Embassy, killing two musicians, a waiter and himself. Later it was discovered that a second bomber, also a British citizen, planned to explode at the same place, but his explosives malfunctioned.
3) A gag order banning publication of details of the investigation was lifted at midnight Tuesday (2100 GMT Monday), police and security sources said.
4) A senior official in the Israeli Shin Bet security agency, which has been handling the inquiry, said several foreign journalists were questioned because they happened to be near the scene of the blast or other places where the bombers were seen.
5) The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one of the reporters might have given the bombers a ride in a press vehicle, but none of the journalists are suspected of knowing about the bombing plot in advance or assisting in it. Otherwise, he said, they would have been arrested.
6) Israel Radio reported that an Italian journalist drove the two to Nablus in the West Bank, and then, with other reporters, to Gaza. The report said the journalists did not tell authorities about their encounter with the bombers until their interrogation.
7) The Israeli police had no comment.
8) Earlier, Israeli investigators said that the two Britons _ Asif Hanif, 21, who carried out the bombing, and Omar Khan Sharif, 27, who escaped but was later found dead _ visited with pro-Palestinian foreign activists in the Gaza Strip. International Solidarity Movement members confirmed that, but insisted that the two were not connected to the group.
9) Sharif's body washed up on the Tel Aviv shore on May 13. An autopsy determined that he had drowned.
10) The security official said that the circumstances around Sharif's death were still unclear. No drugs or signs of violence were found on the body, clad in a bathing suit.
11) The Britons were the first foreign nationals to carry out a suicide bombing in Israel, and the first to infiltrate from Gaza. Investigators said they used their British passports to sail through checkpoints designed to stop Palestinian militants.
12) Also, Gaza is surrounded by a security fence, unlike the West Bank, where dozens of suicide bombers have simply walked across the unmarked, mostly unfortified line into Israel and blown themselves up in nearby cities, killing hundreds.
13) Three people arrested in Britain in connection with the Tel Aviv attack were charged with terrorism offenses.
14) (ml)


Hamas releases farewell video of British suicide bombers, almost a year after attack on Tel Aviv pub
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1) Hamas belatedly claimed responsibility Monday for a suicide bombing in a Tel Aviv pub a year ago and released a farewell video of two British Muslims it had recruited for the attack.
2) The video was unusual: One of the Britons, Asif Hanif, 21, delivered a wide-ranging tirade in English against Israel and the Muslim world. Normally, militants in such videos read a few brief words from the Quran.
3) Three Israelis were killed and 50 wounded in the April 30 attack on ``Mike's Place,'' a beachfront pub popular with foreigners in Israel.
4) Hamas did not claim responsibility until Monday, apparently to protect those who recruited the bombers, even though Israeli security officials said from the start they believed the Islamic militant group was involved.
5) The video, along with Hamas threats of more attacks, was released a day after Israeli troops killed 14 Palestinians in a raid of a Gaza Strip refugee camp. The video was seen as a warning by Hamas that it can slip bombers from Gaza into Israel despite stringent security measures, including a barbed-wire fence ringing the strip.
6) In more than three years of fighting, Palestinian militants have been unable to sneak out of Gaza to carry out bombings, while Hamas cells from the West Bank have sent dozens of assailants during the same period.
7) In trying to get around Israeli security, Hamas in Gaza last year recruited Omar Khan Sharif, 27, from Derby in central England, and Hanif from the London suburb of Hounslow. The two used their British passports to sail through the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel.
8) On April 30, Hanif blew himself up at Mike's Place, killing a waitress and two musicians. Sharif's explosives apparently malfunctioned, and he fled. His body washed up on a nearby beach two weeks later, and an Israeli pathologist said he had drowned.
9) In the farewell video, Sharif and Hanif sat in front of a large green Islamic wall hanging in a Gaza apartment, both wearing military fatigues and carrying assault rifles.
10) Sharif delivered a traditional speech of Quranic verses, while Hanif talked about Palestinian suffering for which he blamed Israel and a complacent Muslim world. ``What are we doing as Muslims to help them (the Palestinians)?'' he said.
11) It became apparent from Hanif's speech that his Hamas recruiters had taken him around Gaza. He said that at one point, he visited a farm in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya that had been destroyed during an Israeli incursion.
12) ``You spend the whole day in fields and then some dude comes with his truck and runs over it. How would you feel? You feel like standing him up, shooting him ... because you have worked for a whole day like that,'' Hanif said. kl-jmf/ml


Brother and sister of alleged suicide bomber face retrial
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1) A judge on Thursday ordered a retrial for a brother and sister facing terrorism charges over an alleged suicide bomb attempt by their brother at an Israeli bar.
2) Jurors told the Old Bailey criminal court they could not agree on verdicts for Parveen Akther Sharif, 35 and Zahid Hussain Sharif, 36. They were charged with failing to report information about their brother, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, that could have prevented an act of terrorism.
3) Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said they will face another jury later this year. Parveen Sharif will also be retried on a charge of inciting her brother to commit an act of terrorism.
4) The pair have denied all the charges.
5) Sharif's widow, Tahira Shad Tabassum, 27, who also stood trial, was found innocent last week on a charge of failing to disclose information about terrorism. A court order which banned reporting of the verdict was lifted Thursday.
6) It was the first prosecution of relatives in Britain in connection with a suicide attack in another country.
7) Omar Sharif was the alleged accomplice of Asif Hanif, 21 in the April 30 bombing that killed three people and injured 60 at a bar called Mike's Place.
8) Sharif, 27, fled the scene after a bomb he allegedly carried failed to detonate. His body washed up on a Mediterranean beach several days later.
9) Both men were identified from their British passports left, apparently deliberately, near the scene.
10) Prosecutors say Sharif and Hanif used the passports to pass easily through checkpoints from the Gaza Strip to Israel and that theirs was the first suicide attack carried out by foreigners in Israeli-Palestinian violence, which broke out nearly four years ago.
11) Tabassum's counsel, Michael Mansfield, had suggested to the jury that her husband may have set out to go to Iraq and not Israel.
12) Material found at his home "suggests strongly that he was not necessarily thinking of going to Israel, but another way of getting into Iraq."
13) "There is no evidence that Omar was focused on Israel or Palestine. There is no evidence that he was interested in laying down his life in Israel for terrorism or any other purpose," Mansfield said.
14) In her testimony, Tabassum said she was "trying to forget the past and find it painful talking about it."
15) She said she had not known he was going to Israel.
16) "I have told the truth. I did not know. You can say what you want, but you cannot change the fact. I did not know. I can look my children in the face and say I knew nothing," she said.
17) (jw-rb)