London bomb suspect questioned in Italy

A Rome judge today questioned a suspect in the failed London bombings, before ruling on whether to bring charges of international terrorism.

Police also gave their first official briefing on the arrest of Osman Hussain, a British citizen also known as Hamdi Issac, who is accused of trying to bomb a London underground train on July 21.

He was arrested on Friday.

Yesterday, police in the northern Italian town of Brescia arrested a man identified as Hussain’s brother, Fati Issac, as investigators searched further for possible accomplices to the July 21 attackers.

Fati Issac was accused of destroying or hiding documents sought by investigators, but the charge doesn’t involve any terrorism accusation, the Italian news agency ANSA said.

Investigators were checking out possible accomplices to try to learn if Hussain was involved in any terror cell in Italy or involved in any plot to launch an attack against Italy.

For years Italian investigators have said that Italy is an important logistics base for terror groups, especially in procuring false travel and identity documents.

Italian law allows suspects to be held for a few days without charges until a judge can review evidence.

Hussain is also awaiting another court’s decision on a British request for his extradition. That court has upheld Hussain’s arrest as one of the first formalities in the process, state TV reported last night.

The government initially identified Hamdi Issac as Osman Hussain, a Somali-born Briton.

His real identity and ethnicity were revealed after his arrest at the apartment of another brother in Rome, with authorities calling him a 27-year-old Briton born in Ethiopia.

The brother in Rome, Remzi Issac, was arrested shortly after Hussain’s capture.

Hussain has told his interrogators that the four bombings attempted on July 21 on London’s transport system weren’t intended to be deadly, according to his court-appointed lawyer, Antonietta Sonnessa.

In an interview on state TV last night, Sonnessa insisted his client wasn’t a fundamentalist, and suggested Hussain had somehow been drawn into the bomb attempts.

In comments on Saturday, the lawyer said her client did not consider himself a terrorist and would probably fight extradition.

Hussain said his cell was not linked to either al Qaida or the cell that carried out the deadly July 7 bombings in London, Italian media reported.