Sri Lanka bomb plotter lived in London
ONE of the Sri Lanka suicide bomb plotters lived in London and spent a year at Kingston University on an aerospace engineering course, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The Isil terrorist, named yesterday as Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, was at the university in south-west London in 2006-07, according to sources. Intelligence agents are investigating any connections he made in the UK to see if he had been radicalised in this country and if he was in contact with jihadists.
It was last night revealed that his plan to attack a forth luxury hotel was halted by a faulty bomb. When it failed to detonate he retreated to a safe house before fixing the device and striking a guesthouse near Colombo zoo, killing two people. Investigators are also tracing the movements of two brothers who blew themselves up at the Shangri-la and Cinnamon Grand hotels, killing scores of tourists.
LORRAINE CAMPBELL had only just embarked on a new chapter in her life when she was killed in the bomb blast that ripped through the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, her family said last night.
Ms Campbell, 55, a businesswoman, married last year and sold her home in Manchester to move to Dubai with Neil Evans, her new husband.
She was on a business trip when she was caught up in the suicide bombings that claimed the lives of more than 350 people, eight of them Britons. Ms Campbell, the last of the British victims to be named, was texting her husband when the bomb went off.
Last night, Mr Evans spoke of his heartbreak. In a tribute released yesterday, he said: “Lorraine was a real tour de force. She epitomised the qualities she lived by and was a conduit for bringing people together to both make things happen, and make them better.
“I’ve lost my best friend in the world for all the adventures we shared and planned for the future.
“I, Lorraine’s family and friends are in a state of disbelief and grief for what has happened.”
Her son, Mark Campbell, 32, told The Daily Telegraph: “She moved out to Dubai last year just after they got married. My mum was like a little schoolgirl after she met Neil. She was like: ‘This guy is fit and he fancies me’.
“She showed the whole of her vulnerable side. The next minute they were married and the next they were off to Dubai, loving life.
“They were the perfect match for each other. They were a beautiful couple. It was true love.
“My heart goes out to Neil. He must be the most heartbroken man in the world right now.”
Ms Campbell had been an IT director at a number of UK firms and a vice president at Deutsche Bank before she made the move to Dubai in February last year.
On her Facebook page she had posted a photograph of herself with her new husband flying first class to the United Arab Emirates, champagne in hand.
Ms Campbell was sitting in the hotel’s restaurant texting her husband when the bomb went off. Mr Evans has now flown to Colombo, where he confirmed her identity.
“He is having a rough time of it,” said Mr Campbell.
It emerged yesterday that a worshipper at the Zion church saved dozens of lives by preventing another of the suicide bombers from entering the building in the town of Batticaloa on Sri Lanka’s east coast.
Ramesh Raju, 40, a father-of-two, died in the blast after he stopped a man with a backpack as he tried to enter the church.