Arrests included baker, salesman and book-keeper

London Times / Adam Fresco, Russell Jenkins, Lewis Smith and Nicola Woolcock
| August 12 2006

ONE terror suspect made cakes, which he delivered in a white van. Another worked in Hamleys, packing toys for children.
Two were wheeler-dealing brothers from the East End of London, who grew up selling sweets and crisps bought from cash-and-carries, and graduated into selling cars and lorries in Chingford.

Among the others arrested in the past 48 hours there was a book-keeper and an expectant father, a secretary for a trendy East London music company, a computer salesman, two company directors and a security guard who worked at Heathrow.

The lives of the two brothers, Umir and Nabeel Hussain, 24 and 21, transformed after their father returned from a trip to Pakistan several years ago.

Before then they had filled their Chingford street with lorries and cars that they bought cheap and tried to sell. As teenagers they would also buy sweets and crisps to sell on.

Their house was never empty, with neighbours describing how lots of people would come and go from the semi- detached property.

On Wednesday night they were arrested with their brother Mehran. Last night their father, Fazal Hussain, a former bus driver for London Transport, told ITV News that he refused to believe any of the claims against his sons.

Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “They went to prayer and they were Muslims, that is the only thing they were guilty of.”

He broke down, unable to speak. The interpreter, a close family friend, spoke for him, saying: “They showed no signs of being radicalised. Anyone who knows them would swear on the Koran that they are innocent.

“They are totally innocent. Fazal cannot understand what has been going on.

“He does not understand how such decent and lawabiding citizens, who would not even think of injuring or swearing at anybody, let alone carry out such activities . . . he totally refuses them. He cannot understand why.”

The family, his wife Raniza, who speaks little English, and another sister, were well liked and used to send Christmas cards to their neighbours.

But their life changed after Fazal returned from his three-month trip abroad.

The Christmas cards stopped, the cars disappeared and the brothers started growing beards and attending a new mosque that had opened ten minutes from their home. The daughter started wearing a yashmak.

A committee member at the Chingford Islamic Society Mosque said that the brothers had been going there since the mosque opened about three years ago. They had never interacted with any of the other members.

It was not the first time he had come into contact with police. His uncle Mohammed Saeed, 54, was stabbed to death near his home in Birmingham in 2002. The killer has never been caught.

Police confirmed that they searched Mr Rauf’s home in connection with the murder but neither he nor the other suspect arrested yesterday were suspects in the killing.

Police searched Mr Rauf’s home again at the height of the Lozells riots in Birmingham last autumn after the racist killing of Isaiah Young-Sams.

Three Asian men were convicted of the murder but neither Mr Rauf nor his brothers were arrested or charged in relation to the murder.

The arrest in Pakistan of Mr Rauf’s brother, Rashid, sparked Thursday’s terror swoops across Britain.

Amin Asmin Tariq, 23, another suspect, was a security man at Heathrow airport.

Another suspect, Waheed Arafat Khan, 24, a Muslim known as Arafat to his friends, never recovered from the death of his father on a pilgrimage to Pakistan. Mr Khan was a computer salesman.

Osman Adam Khatib, 20, was described as “someone with a good heart”.

Ibrahim Savant, 25, a book-keeper in Limehouse, East London, was known as Oliver before he converted to Islam. He has recently married and is expecting a baby shortly. The family home in Walthamstow was being searched by police yesterday.

The youngest suspect is Abdul Muneem Patel, 17, who was seized in the Clapton area of East London.

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