Terror suspect Grant deported to UK after completing jail term

By Moses Muli

Published: August 9,2024 12:03 PM

A British terror suspect and associate of the notorious “White Widow” was Thursday deported from Kenya to the UK, police said.

Jermaine Grant was jailed for possessing bomb-making materials and forgery.

He was linked to the notorious White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite who is missing.

Police and immigration officials said the deportation happened after he completed a prison sentence.

Officials said Grant was flown back to Britain on Thursday accompanied by Kenyan officials and immediately arrested after touching down at Heathrow Airport.

A Mombasa court had last year ordered Grant to be deported once his prison sentence had elapsed following a case made by prosecutors for him to be sent away.

Security officials believe Grant has links to the White Widow, the wife of 7/7 terrorist bomber Germaine Lindsay, and al-Shabaab.

Grant was arrested in 2011 after they found bomb-making materials in his flat in Mombasa.

He was then prosecuted and sentenced to four years in prison in 2019, to be served alongside a separate nine-year sentence for forgery.

Prosecutors then lodged a case to have him deported to Britain once he had served his sentence.

British police told local media a man who was wanted on recall to prison in relation to breaching licence conditions linked to a previous conviction was arrested at Heathrow Airport as he arrived back into the UK on a flight from Kenya.

The man’s licence conditions were revoked in August 2005 following the initial breach, the officials added.

“Upon his return to the UK on August 8, the man was also arrested for being unlawfully at large and arrested on suspicion of being a member of proscribed organisation al-Shabaab. He remains in police custody.”

Grant was arrested at an apartment in Mombasa in December 2011.

Police believed he had been planning a bombing campaign against hotels popular with foreign tourists.

He had previously been apprehended in 2008 over a plot to attack a police base on a bus trying to enter Somalia while dressed in a burka.

Investigators found chemicals, switches and a manual on explosives in the apartment, which he is believed to have shared with Lewthwaite, known as the White Widow.

He was also carrying a forged Canadian passport.

When police swooped on Grant’s apartment Lewthwaite had fled, escaping just minutes earlier after Grant allegedly warned her with a text message.

He is thought to have become radicalised as a teenager in the same British prison where ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid first turned to Islam.

Reid is serving a life sentence in the US for plotting to blow up a transatlantic flight.

Investigators also believe he had links with al-Shabaab, of which Lewthwaite – originally from County Down in Northern Ireland – is also believed to be a member.

Lewthwaite remains at large as one of the world’s most wanted people and has not been seen since – though security sources believe she fled Somalia after leaving her fourth husband two years ago.

She is suspected of orchestrating a string of terror attacks in Africa that have killed more than 400 people including the deadly 2013 Westgate Shopping Mall attack in Nairobi that killed more than 60 civilians and several soldiers.

Justice Anne Ong’injo had directed the Cabinet Secretary responsible for immigration to institute the removal of Grant from Kenya to Britain in accordance with the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act.

The DPP through Assistant DPP Jami Yamina filed the application stating that the deportation order had not been issued when he was sentenced by the lower court.

Prosecution Counsel Ngiri Wangui told Ong’injo that Grant was removed from Kenya and should remain out of Kenya upon completion of his sentence or imprisonment.

Grant told the court during a virtual hearing Wednesday that he has no objection to being deported to Britain.

Ong’injo allowed the DPP’s application and directed that Grant be repatriated to his country of origin.

The Briton was convicted and sentenced to a nine-year jail term for being in the country illegally and trying to acquire Kenyan citizenship in 2015.

Grant was further sentenced to four years for being in possession of explosives and planning a terror attack in 2019 but the court directed that he serve both sentences concurrently.

Grant was sharing an apartment at the time of his arrest with another Briton, Samantha Lewthwaite.

Dubbed the “White Widow”, she had been married to one of four suicide bombers who carried out deadly attacks on public transport in London on July 7, 2005, prosecutors said.

Lewthwaite is still at large and is wanted in Kenya on charges of possession of explosives and conspiracy.