10-year campaign to free the London embassy bombers

JErEMY Corbyn was at the centre of a fresh anti-Semitism row yesterday as he was condemned for campaigning for the release of two men jailed over the Israeli embassy bombing in London.

The Labour leader supported Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, who were convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions after two car bomb attacks in London on July 26, 1994.

They were each jailed for 20 years. The pair fought a lengthy campaign to clear their names but their appeals were rejected by the Court of Appeal and the European Court of Human rights.

Yesterday, Moshe raviv, who was the Israeli ambassador in London when the attacks took place, said Mr Corbyn’s past campaigning for the pair was a ‘clear and blatant support of terrorism’.

He added that recent pictures of Mr Corbyn in Tunisia – standing beside the graves of men who plotted the massacre at the 1972 Munich olympics – showed that he ‘has not changed his views and support for terrorism’.

Mr raviv told the Jewish Chronicle: ‘In London he supported the convicted terrorists – a straight line can be seen from there to what happened in Tunisia.’

Mr Corbyn campaigned for more than 10 years for Alami and Botmeh, who were convicted of the attack which injured 20 people and caused millions of pounds worth of damage.

He signed five letters of support for the pair between 2002 and 2006, and, in 2013, wrote a letter on House of Commons’ paper saying he had supported Botmeh’s case ‘in Parliament and outside, including in meetings/demonstrations’.

‘Jawad [Botmeh’s] case is, I believe, a miscarriage of justice,’ he added.

Alami and Botmeh, both Britisheducated Palestinians, denied involvement in the bombings. The

pair claimed they had been researching explosives when faced with evidence linking them to two caches of pistols and bomb-making equipment.

Mr Raviv said that it was ‘extremely disappointing, to see a Member of Parliament supporting perpetrators of such a horrible act of terror’.

The former ambassador, who was in Israel at the time of the attack, added: ‘We knew Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Israel attitude... But to support terrorism, this was very disappointing. Even to the present day, it is hard to believe how he could do this, especially, when the High Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights upheld the conviction. I think it shows what kind of attitude Corbyn had towards Palestinian terrorists.’

Last night, a spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: ‘Jeremy believed that there had been a miscarriage of justice. He, of course, condemns all terrorist acts.’