London bombings suspects visited Pakistan last year

Three of the four suspected suicide bombers in the July 7 attacks in London travelled to Karachi in southern Pakistan in 2004, but the purpose of their visits was unclear, an immigration official said today.

Shahid Hayyat, a deputy director at the Federal Investigation Agency, said one of the men arrived in Karachi in July 2004, and immigration officials were unclear on the details of his departure. Two other men arrived in the same city on November 19 and returned to London in February, according to Hayyat.

The three men were Britons of Pakistani origin, and authorities are trying to determine whether extremists in Pakistan provided them with training or other assistance in the London attacks that killed 55 people and injured 700 others. The four attackers blew themselves up on three underground trains and on a double-decker bus, according to investigators.

Hayyat said suspect Hasib Hussain, 18, arrived a year ago aboard a Saudi airliner. Two other suspects, 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer and 30-year-old Mohammed Saddiq Khan, arrived in Karachi in November aboard a Turkish Airlines flight.

Hayyat had no comment on what the men did during their visit, nor where they travelled.

“I have no such information, but I know that our security agencies are trying to get such details,” he said.

Pakistani intelligence officials have said Tanweer briefly stayed at a religious school and met with a member of an outlawed domestic militant group. Pakistan has said that it was extending full support to Britain in its efforts to trace those linked to the attacks in London.

The disclosure by Hayyat came a day after a Pakistani intelligence official involved in the investigation said authorities questioned a businessman whose mobile telephone number was listed on the phone records of one of the alleged London suicide bombers.

The businessman, who has not been identified, was not taken into custody, according to the official. The official said the businessman was questioned near the eastern city of Sialkot yesterday, and told intelligence officials that he had many business contacts in England.