Bomber's Family 'could Not Know'

A British suicide bomber who joined a murderous attack on an Israeli bar left Britain telling family members he was going to study in Syria, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.

The prosecution alleges they knew what he was planning but did nothing. But the wife, brother and sister of Omar Sharif deny failing to reveal information about terrorism.

His sister Parveen Sharif also denies inciting her brother to commit a terrorist act.

Omar Sharif and fellow Briton Asif Hanif attacked a Tel Aviv seafront bar in April last year, killing four people. Hanif died at the scene, but Sharif's device failed to explode. His body was found 12 days later off the Israeli coast.

The defence rejected prosecution claims that Sharif had decided to attack targets inside Israel before leaving his home in Derby in April last year, and had told the three family members now on trial of his intentions.

Opening the defence for Sharif's sister, Ben Emmerson QC said it was only after seeing her brother in military uniform and brandishing a gun that she began to realise what he had done:

He said: "Up until that point she found it impossible to accept that Omar had willingly taken part in a suicide bombing."

Mr Emmerson produced emails showing that Sharif was planning to study in the Middle East.

But the jury also heard that while in Syria Sharif had discussed going to Iraq to fight US and British forces who were invading that country. They had even checked bus timetables.

In March this year Hamas released a video of Sharif and Hanif before the attack.

They were the first two non-Palestinians recruited by Hamas for a suicide mission inside Israel.

Mr Emmerson said Hamas militants saw the British passports of Hanif and Sharif as a way of avoiding Israeli scrutiny: "All the evidence points to Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif having strayed into the hands of a small group of Hamas activists who saw their arrival as an unexpected military and political opportunity and took advantage of it."

The men's British passports would make it easier for them to pass from the occupied territories and into Israel, Mr Emmerson said.

"But if this was a wholly unpredictable and one off event, the result of an unexpected change of direction by the two men, then how on earth could the family of one of the men, a world away in Derby, have possibly imagined or guessed what might be about to happen."

Sharif's sister, Parveen, 36, said she had come to Islam after her father's death in 1993.

Ms Sharif had thought the religion was oppressive and treated women badly. But after reading books on Islam she said she realised the true nature of the religion.

The trial continues.