Mother of bomb suspect denies his guilt
July 22, 2005 - 11:24AM
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The mother of suspected London bomber Germaine Lindsay has tearfully described him as a good son and said she would not accept his guilt without proof.
Maryam McLeod, wearing a traditional Islamic robe and veil over her face during a news conference in Grenada, called the July 7 bombings "horrific" and said she's struggling to cope.
"I need evidence to believe that my baby could ever harm anyone, let alone kill, injure and traumatise a community," McLeod said.
"I am still in shock and know not how to grieve for my son," she added. "Therefore, I grieve first for the victims, ones who are dead and ones who are alive. May Allah forgive our living and our dead and have mercy upon us all."
British police said Lindsay died in the worst of the suicide attacks - a train bomb that killed at least 26 people between King's Cross and Russell Square stations.
McLeod, who, like her son, is a Jamaican-born British citizen, was accompanied by her lawyer and Grenadian husband.
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AdvertisementAt times, she sobbed quietly while speaking of her 19-year-old son, who she said preferred to be called Jamal.
"Jamal ... was the best son I could have ever hoped for," she said. "I respected and admired him so very much because he was so responsible when I last saw him in 2004."
McLeod did not elaborate about her last meeting with her son.
She said Lindsay had been a loving father and husband and called their shared Islamic faith "a religion of peace and justice".
"It is a balanced religion that does not condone or entertain extremism," she said. "Extremism is a newly invented matter and all newly invented matters lead to the hell's fire."
Britain's Sunday Times newspaper has reported that US intelligence officials had warned Britain that Lindsay was on a terrorist watch list but that the British domestic intelligence service, MI5, failed to monitor him.
Fifty-six people, including Australian man Sam Ly, died and about 700 others were injured in the morning rush-hour attacks on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus.
McLeod said her family was cooperating with authorities and asked the media to allow her to "grieve peacefully".
Lindsay's father, Nigel Lindsay, lives in Jamaica and said last week he had not seen his son since he visited the Caribbean island when he was 11.
«Il Mondo non sarà mai abbastanza vasto, né l’Umanità abbastanza forte per essere degni di Colui che li ha creati e vi si è incarnato»
(P. Teilhard de Chardin, La vision du passé, in “Inno dell’universo”, Queriniana, Brescia 1995, p. 76)>>