Inside the hunt for ‘White Widow’ jihadi bride who ‘masterminded 400 deaths and pumped teen suicide bombers with heroin’
SAMANTHA Lewthwaite is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world – but a film will question whether the White Widow is to blame for countless bloody murders.
Interpol placed a Red Notice on Lewthwaite, who has been linked to 400 deaths in attacks mainly on African soil.
The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey is going to play the mother-of-four who converted to Islam aged 17 in a movie titled Girl Next Door.
It is sure to be a controversial role because the film’s director Bruce Goodison describes Lewthwaite as “a young life-affirming idealist with a broken heart.”
Lewthwaite, who was born in Northern Ireland and grew up in Aylesbury, Bucks, was married to the suicide bomber Germaine Lindsay, who murdered 25 people in London on July 7, 2005.
There have long been questions as to how much Lindsay’s wife, who was pregnant with her second child at the time of the atrocity, knew about the plot.
She denied knowing he planned to blow up a tube train, but her subsequent alleged involvement with other terrorists has cast doubt on that.
Goodison says his story will see her as a woman whose “grief” is “exploited by men for purposes of global terror.”
He describes Girl Next Door as an “unsettling mystery” and certainly Lewthwaite is one of the most mysterious figures in the global jihadist movement.
Security services across Africa and the Middle East have tried to track her down, but this shadowy figure has eluded capture for a decade and a half.
The most recent unconfirmed sightings placed her in war-torn Yemen where the al-Shabaab terror network she is said to have affiliated with has been operating.
There were reports that she was recruiting female suicide bombers.
Soldier’s daughter
The West Asian land is certainly a long way from Lewthwaite’s early life in the United Kingdom.
Born to soldier Andrew Lewthwaite in Northern Ireland she grew up in Aylesbury, Bucks.
It is said that after her parents split up when she was aged 11 she grew close to her Muslim neighbours.
Aged 17 Lewthwaite converted to Islam and changed her first name to Sherafiyah.
Her new faith led her to an Islamic chat room where she formed an online relationship with Lindsay, before meeting him in the flesh for the first time at an anti-Iraq war march in London.
The diligant student got the grades to attend the University of London, but dropped out and settled down with Lindsay.
They married in 2002 and three years later 19-year-old Lindsay carried out the 7/7 bombings with three other men.
Afterwards Lewthwaite was given police protection and she described the London attack as “horrific.”
Terror network
In the following months, however, it seems she grew increasingly radicalised and left Britain three years after 7/7.
Intelligence reports show that Lewthwaite first lived in South Africa where she worked in IT before being deported in 2009.
From there she travelled to Kenya via Tanzania, sneaking in on a false passport bearing the name Natalie Faye Webb.
It was only in 2012, though, that her terror links came to light during an investigation by Kenyan police.
They found a bomb-making factory in a villa on the coastal city of Mombasa, an AK-47, plus a photo of Lewthwaite and her laptop.
On the computer she had written a poem praising 9/11 terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden, saying: “Oh Sheik Osama my father, my brother, My love for you is like no other.”
Fingerprints found at the property were also said to be hers and the landlord identified her as having lived there.
She was said to be with Londoner Habib Ghani, who was described as “very dangerous”.
Lewthwaite was linked to a grenade attack which killed three people in Mombasa in June 2012 as they sat in a bar watching England play Italy.
Anyone playing Sam needs to be fearless
Bruce Goodison
Police named her as one of the suspects.
There were suspicions that her group were also planning an attack on a nearby resort.
The terror cell are then said to have switched their attention to the Westgate mall in Kenya’s capital Nairobi where 62 civilians were killed in September 2013.
International manhunt
By now she was the target of a full-blown international manhunt.
Security sources say Lewthwaite began to operate in Somalia, a country decimated by internal conflict.
There were suspicions that she was helping to make bombs and had played a part in recruiting up to 40 Brits to al-Shabaab.
Local intelligence agencies claimed she had persuaded Somalian boys as young as 15 to become suicide bombers.
Some of them were given heroin prior to becoming “martyrs.”
In 2015 she was connected to a mass shooting of 148 people at a university in Garissa, Kenya.
Three years later there were alleged sightings in Yemen, where she was said to be offering as little as £300 to the desperate families of young women – to persuade them become suicide bombers.
She has not yet been charged with any of those offences.
Interpol lists two charges against Lewthwaite – possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a crime.
The extent to which she was involved in carrying out so many attacks remains unclear.
Some reports said Lewthwaite, who is said to be on her fourth marriages, was more in recruitment, finance and organisation.
Goodison doubts she is a “mastermind”.
He said: “The film is unapologetically from Sam’s perspective — anyone playing Sam needs to be fearless.”
Or should that be feared?
