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‘Man held for questioning linked to Osama’

LUSAKA (Zambia): A British man in custody in Zambia in connection with the July 7 London bombings was once a body guard for al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, Zambian security officials said on Friday.

The security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, said during questioning that he had once been a personal guard for bin Laden. Aswat was detained in Lusaka after he entered the country from Botswana, the Zambian officials said.

London’s Metropolitan Police headquarters has declined to comment on Aswat’s arrest in Zambia.

The Zambian officials said investigators were particularly interested in talking to Aswat about 20 phone calls allegedly made from his phone to some of the men thought to have set off bombs in London on July 7.

Aswat entered Zambia last week from Botswana and intelligence agents trailed him to a safe house in Lusaka where he was arrested, the Zambian officials said.

The sources said Aswat had lived in South Africa and frequently travelled to Mozambique and Botswana. One official said Zambia informed the British High Commission about the arrest, but the British said they believed Aswat had been detained in Pakistan. He said the British have since requested cooperation and access to Aswat. He said South Africa also wanted to find out what Aswat was doing there.

The British Foreign Office has said it was seeking access to a Briton reportedly detained in Zambia but would not identify him. Aswat reportedly was once an associate of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a Muslim preacher who is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Al-Masri also is wanted in the United States on charges of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Bly. ap

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