Partner of London bomb plotter jailed

The partner of a man who tried to carry out a suicide bombing in London in July 2005 was jailed for 15 years today after she …

The partner of a man who tried to carry out a suicide bombing in London in July 2005 was jailed for 15 years today after she was convicted of not telling authorities about the plot and helping him escape.

Yeshiemebet Girma (32), was the partner of Hussein Osman, one of four men who unsuccessfully tried to blow up three underground trains and a bus to replicate attacks a fortnight earlier in which suicide bombers killed 52 commuters.

The July 21st attack only failed because the men's bombs failed to explode. The Old Bailey was told they would have caused "carnage and mass murder" had they done so.

Jailing her for 15 years, Judge Paul Worsley told Girma: "You already shared Osman's extreme views on Islam and co-ordinated the escape plan for the father of your three children after he failed to achieve his sought-after place in paradise."

In the chaotic aftermath of the failed bombings, Osman fled to Rome where he was eventually arrested, deported back to Britain and jailed last July for a minimum of 40 years.

"Armed with that prior knowledge of what was going to happen, the defendant Yeshi Girma could have attempted to prevent the attacks," prosecutor Max Hill told the trial.

He said 30 minutes after the bombings went wrong, Osman had phoned Girma, the mother of three of his children, to help plan his escape.

She, along with her brother Esyas (22), and sister Mulu (23), helped him to escape to Brighton and then to return to London two days later.

He fled Britain ultimately for Italy on a Eurostar train on July 26th, using his brother's passport.