Egyptian biochemist arrested

The man denied playing any role in the July 7 attacks, which killed at least 54 people.
WASHINGTON POST
CAIRO, Egypt -- An Egyptian biochemist who was arrested here for questioning about the London terror bombings grew up in a gritty neighborhood on Cairo's outskirts but built a successful academic career in the United States and Britain, neighbors and former colleagues said Friday.
His arrest broadened the investigation into the attacks, the worst case of terrorism on British soil. In view of his travels -- academic training took him from Cairo to North Carolina to England -- the man's whereabouts and contacts quickly interested U.S. and British investigators, as well as those in Egypt, who remain wary of the specter of Islamic militancy.
The Interior Ministry here identified the man as Magdi Mahmoud Mustafa Nashar, 33, a researcher at Leeds University in Britain. It said he was on a six-week vacation in Cairo, where his family lives, and had planned to return to Britain afterward.
He denied to interrogators that he played any role in planning the July 7 attacks, which killed at least 54 people, including four bombers. "He pointed out that all of his belongings were still in his apartment" in Britain, the ministry statement said.
A go-between?
Egyptian officials said little else about the arrest or whether Nashar was considered a witness or suspect. In London, police chief Ian Blair said Britain may dispatch officers to Cairo and would consider extradition if necessary.
British media have reported that Nashar served as a go-between in renting a town house that was raided by police Tuesday in Leeds, a diverse industrial city north of London where three of the four suspected bombers lived. British law enforcement officials said they found explosives in the house.
Word of Nashar's detention prompted surprise among some colleagues at Leeds University and Egyptians who grew up with Nashar along a leafy but poor and crowded street near the wealthy Cairo suburb of Maadi.
"For me he was fine, nothing abnormal in any way," said John Findlay, a Leeds professor of biochemistry. "The whole thing's a shock. You don't think about anything like this with colleagues. We know almost nothing about their background. The university is made up of all sorts of people, you don't presume anything."
His childhood neighborhood
In his former Cairo neighborhood, he was remembered as a somewhat quiet, polite youth, who had lived with his parents and a younger brother and sister on a modest, second-floor apartment in a narrow street prone to ruptures of sewage.
"He wasn't involved in anything political," said Mustafa Mahmoud, 41, a day laborer. "Look at the area. We all live next to each other, we all know everything about each other, and I know there wasn't anything political about him."