London Suspects Remain Jailed

Three of the four main suspects in the failed July 21 London bombings appeared at a high-security court Monday charged with attempting to murder passengers on London's transport system.

Ibrahim Muktar Said, 27, Ramzi Mohammed, 23, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, were ordered to remain in custody until Nov. 14 on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possessing or making explosives and conspiracy to use explosives. They face life in prison if convicted.

Said was accused of trying to detonate a bomb on a bus in east London. Mohammed is suspected of attempting to bomb the Oval station subway train, while Omar allegedly targeted an underground train near Warren Street station.

The men spoke only to confirm their names.

The fourth main suspected attacker, known both as Osman Hussain and as Hamdi Issac, was arrested in Rome and is being held there on international terrorism charges. British authorities are seeking his extradition.

Suspected Islamic militant Haroon Rashid Aswat also appeared in court Monday following a U.S. request for his extradition.

His lawyer says Aswat has nothing to hide, that he denies "any suggestion that he's a terrorist" and that he will challenge extradition.

Aswat was deported from Zambia on Sunday and arrested on a U.S. warrant accusing him of organizing a training camp in Oregon to prepare people to fight in Afghanistan. A British judge ordered him to remain in custody until a further hearing on Thursday.

The arrest of Aswat, a British citizen of Indian descent, comes as British prosecutors said they would consider treason charges against any Islamic extremists who express support for terrorism.

The U.S. warrant accuses Aswat of conspiring with others between October 1999 and April 2000 to set up a camp in Bly, Ore., aimed at training and equipping individuals to "fight jihad in Afghanistan," police said in a statement.

Aswat, 30, had been detained in Zambia since July 20, where he was questioned about 20 phone calls reportedly made on his South African cell phone with some of the bombers responsible for the July 7 transit attacks in London that killed 52 people and the four bombers. British newspaper reports quoting intelligence sources there have in recent days played down the possibility Aswat masterminded the London bombings.

He was deported Sunday to Britain, said Zambian Home Affairs Secretary Peter Mumba.

Aswat is one of two associates of the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri who are referred to but not named or charged in a 2002 indictment issued by a federal grand jury in Seattle against a Muslim convert from the area, officials have said. The other is Oussama Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swede, who was convicted of weapons violations in Sweden in 2003.

Aswat and Kassir "inspected the proposed jihad training camp at the Bly property ... and they and others participated in firearms training and viewed a video recording on the subject of improvised poisons" in November and December 1999, the indictment said.

Under U.S. law, the United States has 60 days to secure an indictment against Aswat, now that he has been arrested on provisional warrant.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's office said the Crown Prosecution Service's head of anti-terrorism would meet with senior Metropolitan Police officers to discuss possible charges against three prominent clerics as part of a crackdown on those the government believes are inciting terrorism.

Clerics Omar Bakri Mohammed, Abu Izzaden and Abu Uzair, have appeared on British television in recent days and a spokeswoman for Lord Goldsmith's office said prosecutors and police would look at remarks made by the three and consider whether they could face charges of treason, incitement to treason, solicitation of murder, or incitement to withhold information known to be of use to police.

Mohammed has reportedly said since the July 7 attacks that he would not inform police if he knew Muslims were planning another attack and he supports insurgents who attack troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"No decision on charges has been made yet," the attorney general's office spokeswoman said, speaking anonymously because British civil servants are rarely allowed to be quoted by name.

The spokeswoman said prosecutors may also seek access to taped recordings made by an undercover Sunday Times reporter who reportedly recorded members of a radical group praising the suicide bombers as "The Fantastic Four."

The newspaper's story said its reporter spent two months as a "recruit" of the group, the Savior Sect, and described the organization as inciting young British Muslims to become terrorists.