France and Britain row over bomber claims

FRENCH and British ministers were at loggerheads last night after it appeared that France’s Interior Minister claimed the four London bombers had been arrested and deliberately released last year.

Nicolas Sarkozy was reported to have told journalists that this was revealed to him by British Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

But the British authorities, including Mr Clarke, quickly denied the suggestion attributed to Mr Sarkozy during an emergency Justice and Home Affairs Ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday.

It later emerged that Mr Sarkozy had been misquoted from a briefing with French journalists. A transcript of the briefing showed that he said it appears the four believed to have been involved in the London attacks were part of a wider terrorist network, some of whose members were arrested somewhere in Europe in spring 2004.

Mr Sarkozy, who is tipped as the next French President, told a press conference he had heard from the British Minister that suspects had been arrested early last year, but released and held under surveillance in a plan to uncover the wider network.

However, Mr Clarke denied the claims.

“This is completely and utterly untrue. I have not even talked to Mr Sarkosy about this matter.

“I find it amazing. I simply don’t understand where he’s said that from. He’s simply wrong in that assertion,” he said.

He refused to comment on his claims about the source of the explosives.