Osman Hussain (also Hussain Osman or Hamdi Isaac) (born 27 July 1978) is a terrorist who was found guilty of having placed an explosive at the

Shepherd's Bush tube station Shepherd's Bush is a London Underground station in the district of Shepherd's Bush in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The station is on the Central line, between and stations, and it lies in Travelcard Zone 2. The station o ...

during the failed

21 July 2005 London bombings On Thursday, 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks by Islamist extremists disrupted part of London's public transport system as a follow up attack from the 7 July 2005 London bombings that occurred two weeks earlier. The explosions occur ...

. Born in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

, Hussain is a

naturalised British citizen British nationality law prescribes the conditions under which a person is recognised as being a national of the United Kingdom. The six different classes of British nationality each have varying degrees of civil and political rights, due to the ...

married to Yeshshiemebet Girma. On 29 July 2005, he was arrested during a 40-officer raid at his brother-in-law's apartment in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, after mobile phone calls led police to believe he was hiding there. He was later extradited to the UK in September under a European Arrest Warrant and charged with attempted murder. He stood trial along with five other suspects.

Claimed objectives

During the initial investigation in Rome, Hussain said he was motivated to participate in the attacks after viewing videos of war-torn Iraq. "I am against war," Osman said. "I've marched in peace rallies and nobody listened to me. I never thought of killing people." He explained that the bombs were never meant to detonate or kill anybody, only to draw attention to the Iraq war. Hussain was alleged to have stated: "More than praying we discussed work, politics, the war in Iraq ... we always had new films of the war in Iraq ... more than anything else those in which you could see Iraqi women and children who had been killed by US and UK soldiers." Other news sources reported that the bombers watched videos of British and American troops killing women and children in Iraq before embarking on their mission. Some quoted him as saying " Muktar showed us some DVDs with images of the war in Iraq, especially women and children killed by American and British soldiers," Hussain said, adding that they were not to talk about these videos with others. "There was a feeling of hatred and conviction that it was necessary to give signal — to do something." Hussain denied links with either the Al-Qaeda or the 7 July bombers. He claimed there was no bomb in his rucksack, just ordinary flour and a detonator meant to make the loud popping sound that was heard.

Trial and sentence

On 9 July 2007 Hussain Osman was found guilty at

Woolwich Crown Court Woolwich Crown Court, or more accurately the Crown Court at Woolwich, is located at 2 Belmarsh Road, Thamesmead is one of twelve Crown Court centres serving Greater London. It is adjacent to both HM Prison Belmarsh and Belmarsh Magistrates' C ...

of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.

Appeal

In April 2008, the Court of Appeal judges dismissed a challenge by Ibrahim, Omar, Mohammed and Osman to their convictions. In December 2014, the European Court of Human Rights rejected an appeal lodged in 2008 by Ibrahim, Omar and Mohammed claiming that their rights were breached in the 'safety interviews' after their arrests.

Claimed objectives

Trial and sentence

Appeal

See also

References

External links