London bomber who worked in chip shop left £121,000 fortune

Published on 07/01/2006 00:45

DETECTIVES investigating the 7 July bombings in London are trying to establish how one of the four-man gang involved in the attack managed to amass a personal fortune of £121,000 while working part-time in a chip shop.

The revelation fuels speculation that the bomb gang received outside financial assistance to mount their attacks.

The net value of 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer's estate was more than double the 55,000 compensation amputees will receive after the attack, and more than ten times the 11,000 that bereaved families can expect.

In July, The Scotsman revealed that the Pakistani security services suspected Tanweer, who killed seven people in the attack on Aldgate Tube station, had attended a religious school run by the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba during a visit to the country. He is believed to have received terrorist training during his time in Pakistan.

Earlier this week, it was claimed that the London bomb attacks had cost only a few hundred pounds to stage. That assessment, however, was strongly disputed by terrorism experts including Professor Paul Wilkinson, of St Andrews University, who maintained that the bombers must have received training and assistance from abroad.

Yesterday, Paul Beaver, an independent security analyst, said he believed Tanweer may have been holding funding intended to be used for acts of terrorism.

"We don't yet fully understand how the funding of these things works, but it seems people make anonymous donations to a network of accounts," he said. "I think that it could be that Tanweer was in receipt of money destined for other people. The amount he left is astonishing for a person in his circumstances."

Scotland Yard said it was investigating the finances of the four bombers.

Police may be able to seize the money if it can be shown to have come from the proceeds of crime but they have not yet established how Tanweer amassed such a sum.

Legal experts say that while the net value of the estate was 121,000, it would have been higher before funeral expenses and any loans or other debts were paid off.

Tanweer worked part-time at his father's fish and chip shop, South Leeds Fisheries, in the run-down Leeds suburb of Beeston and was not believed to have had any other source of income.

A spokesman for the probate department at the High Court said: "The net amount figure of 121,000 is the realisable figure left after taxes and debts on the estate have been deducted.

"We have no information as to what the estate was worth before that deduction was made. The only people who will know are the family and the solicitors."

Tanweer died intestate and his father, Mohammed Muntaz Tanweer, has applied for a letter of administration to take control of his son's estate.