All language subtitles for Episode 03 The White Widow

The 7th of July in 2005,

I remember it was a Thursday.

It was so crowded I didn't need
to hold onto anything, I could just...

Stand there and lean on
other people.

Within a few seconds of the train moving

off from king's cross station...

Um... there was a...
Like a flash and then...

Total darkness.

Breaking news
from the pa newswire

that there's been reports of an explosion

in the east end of London.

I knew instantly
it was a terrorist attack.

Twenty-five out of 52 innocent people
were killed in my carriage.

Central London? Has been rocked

by a series of terrorist attacks.

A number of people have died,

and they say among the injured
are many different nationalities.

Three hundred injured,
45 of them seriously.

Police confirmed explosives
were found there.

There is a suggestion that
the explosion was caused

by a suicide bomber.

Then that would be the first
suicide bomber

to have struck in the United Kingdom.

Germaine was responsible
for the deaths of 26 people.

I started delving into his background...

And found out that he was married
to Samantha lewthwaite.

Samantha lewthwaite,
known as the white widow.

Samantha was married
to one of the London bombers

and she's made a name for herself
as a terrorism mastermind.

She may now be
the most wanted woman in the world.

She was everything.

She was planner...

...she was motivator, she was organizer

in the al-shabaab movement
and in general, in east Africa.

She understood the nuances
of avoiding observation and surveillance.

And I think she got a kick out of it.

She beat US.

We couldn't prosecute her.
We tried and failed.

If I had an opportunity
to arrest her, I would.

But I don't think she's a woman
who will give up easily.

Neither am I.

Lewthwaite was named "the white widow"

after the death of her husband,
germaine Lindsay,

one of the London suicide bombers.

She's been on the run
for the last four years.

After the bombings

when the identities
of the terrorists became known...

Samantha was under extreme pressure.

She had questions to answer.

No, not just to the police. To her friends
and family, people that knew her.

"What did you know about this, Samantha?"

First time I met her,

we took her to a place...
It was a manor house.

And the manor house rented out
a number of cottages in the grounds.

Rolling green fields,
there was a river running nearby.

So we were sitting outside on a lovely,
lovely hot day, expecting Samantha.

When she arrived in a... in a taxi
with her, newly-born child and--

we were quite surprised to see that

when she got out
that she had the full hi-- hijab on.

Which was massively out of keeping

with the, local community
and the local area.

Eventually she agreed to,
uncover her face.

Everybody wanted to talk to her.
Yes, it was a great scoop.

She was a white western convert.

She painted herself as a naive victim
of her husband's crime.

She made the statement that
obviously, the bombings were abhorrent.

That she could not believe
that her husband was able to do this.

The first time Samantha lewthwaite
met germaine Lindsay

was at a "stop the war" march.

The fact that she met her husband
at one of these marches is significant.

The resentment of British and US
invasion of Iraq

was one of the defining factors
for the group to conduct the 7/7 bombings.

She obviously has connections
with the sentiment

of why her husband and his group members
would want to carry out this attack.

We spent three days with her,
doing the interviewing.

The very fact that she'd been
intensively interviewed by the police

and no suspicion had been cast
on her story at all.

There was never allegations
that she was involved.

So everything kind of

fitted with her story
that she'd just been taken in.

In hindsight, when I look back at it,
she was clearly putting on an act.

But at the time
I believed every word of it.

Samantha lewthwaite played dumb,
if you like.

She played very like:
"I'm just the wife."

"There was nothing untoward
about, our relationship."

But, um, very quickly, um...

We could get a bit of an idea

that some of the stories
people like Samantha lewthwaite

were telling US, probably weren't true.

Some of the...
Hasib hussain's family, for example,

he was one of the other bombers,

you know, straight away,
they were on the phone:

"Our son is on a... on a day trip?Down
in London today, we're worried about him."

Samantha lewthwaite?
"No, I'm not-- I'm not bothered.

Seven days later I'll ring the police."

Why is she not thinking,
"my god, where's my husband?

I'm seven months pregnant.

I'm seven months pregnant,
yet my husband hasn't come home."

She named the child that was born
after the bombing, "shahid."

Shahid means,
it's an honorific term for a... a martyr.

You know,
she's called her child "martyr"...

Effectively, um, after... and she's
supposed to be disgusted...

About what her husband's done.

I really pressed hard
to have her arrested.

You know, I really, really wanted her
on the suspect list.

Sadly, the senior
investigating officer...

Felt that
there wasn't enough evidence to proceed.

And that the cps would say no.

And I massively regret that she... gets
this opportunity to kill other people.

Of course, I think about it
every single day.

And then, quite clearly,
when you look at what happened in mombasa.

She beat US.

We had the intelligence
that there were some guys

who were planning an attack in mombasa.

So we needed to move fast

to preempt that kind of action.

Through our surveillance, we had already
known the houses where they were staying.

So we had to move to that house.

It was a two bedroom house.

It was an orphanage and
there was only a mattress on the floor.

And some containers.

They had acetone, hydrogen peroxide.

Power source, that is the battery.
We had a switch altimeter...

We just automatically knew that these
were explosive making... materials.

After analyzing some of the documents
found in that house

we were able to know that house
belonged to germaine John Grant.

He was a UK citizen.

We organized an operation
to arrest Grant.

In his confession,
Grant said that Samantha was the big fish.

She was the person who was financing
these guys and their operations

she was at the top.

I first heard about
Samantha lewthwaite was because the times,

rival newspaper in London,
that morning had splashed

with the story that lewthwaite
had been linked to this terror cell

with the same materials
her ex-husband used...

To detonate the bombs in London in 2005.

What seems to have happened is,
at some point

the police moved to arrest germaine Grant
outside that house in mombasa.

Now, there was an sms that Grant I believe
sent from his phone, to the phone

registered to Samantha lewthwaite
that said: "The lions are coming."

Or lions... something like that,
right? So that's a warning.

So as the police are there,
she's running from the villa.

We had to find all of the places
that we suspected these guys were.

In one of the houses
was a white lady.

Kenyan police come to that house,

knock on the door,
Samantha opens the door.

She opened. She was very calm.
She was wearing a Muslim veil.

The kids were playing around the place.

"Can we speak to you?"
"Of course you can."

"Can we see your ID?"
"No problem."

Natalie Faye webb,
"hello, Mrs. Natalie."

That day, we looked at the passport.

It was her photo.

It was not a... a false document.

She told US she was a South African,

by the name Natalie Faye webb.

So we didn't have any reason
to doubt that passport.

She went through this
perfectly relaxed, yeah.

Gave, got the passport back.

The police said, "we might come
and see you again." And left.

That is when
we got further intelligence report that...

Natalie Faye webb was a fake name.

Immediately, we sent back
another team, back to the house.

Only to discover, she... she's gone.

She's gone, of course.

We discovered some items.

The most interesting one was a UK
birth certificate of a lady by the name...

Samantha lewthwaite.

There's another thing
that interested US in that house.

We were able to get some documents that
gave US the location of another house.

The upmarket, um...
Villa that she lived in

is very close to a strip of hotels
on a beautiful beach

north of mombasa, called shanzu.

In there, we later discovered
sacks of cash...

In a black bin liner...

Ammunition, rifles, and fake passports.

The plot was to hit hotels
during the high season at Christmas.

That would have been devastating.
We saw what happened in Tunisia.

We saw what happened in paradise hotel
in mombasa, nine years earlier.

You can just walk in with a gun and you're
gonna cause huge, huge, huge carnage.

Mombasa's...
It's a big urban center.

And you have, western tourism,

scuba diving and beachside bikinis,

coexisting with... um,
a large Muslim population.

And within that,
you have pockets of militancy.

There have been islamist extremist
networks in Kenya

since the early 1990s.

Samantha lewthwaite
chose to travel to Kenya

rather than to other
international hubs of...

Jihadist terrorism, such as Iraq or Syria.

Kenya obviously,
being an English-speaking country

may not have posed
such a linguistic barrier.

Not needing a visa for entry as well,
is also an important consideration.

By June,

six months after she'd fled that house,
she walked back into the lion's den.

My name is Peter okono.

I was an eye witness
at Jericho bar attack.

The bar, by that time it was very popular.

The civil servants, the police,
people working in the government

liked to go to that place because

there was nice food
and then there was nice party.

That night I arrived as always.
There was a football match and then

there was live music.

So the whole place was full with people.

Then I noticed... a lady.

She was not looking like
our ladies around here.

She was more white.

She was in a hijab.

Normally, in these local places...

It looks strange to see a white person.

She was looking determined.

She was focused.

Getting close to her,
I managed to see her face.

And realized she had blue eyes.

And before the dust could settle...

...there was a blast.

This is the Mark
which was left after the blast.

One person lost his life here.

After that blast,
there was a commotion.

People were running helter-skelterly.

Some were... running,
to-- to save their lives.

People were bleeding.
The people were injured.

There was blood everywhere.
On their faces, their hands.

So the ones I knew who died were three.

Was it the person that you saw that night?

Yes.

That's the lady I saw
on that particular day.

And two or three people tell you the same.

There's a car park attendant
who said it was her.

So I printed four pictures.
Three random women,

white women off the Internet.
And the lewthwaite picture.

And he picked lewthwaite.

Never seen again.
That is the last concrete identification

of Samantha lewthwaite anywhere.

This was a girl

young woman, who had decided
that this was her course in life.

Don't forget, as a girl,
as a young... much younger woman

she would've been conscious of the edge...

Of danger, of the edge of terrorism.

Her father was involved in it.
She lived amidst it.

She was... the product

of a British soldier
who was serving in northern Ireland

on a long tour of duty over there.

He met an Irish girl.

The child was brought up over there.

Her father...
Served with distinction

with allowances in northern Ireland.

So he was fighting terrorism
on a... day-to-day basis.

So... this was a child born
of a terrorist situation.

In terror. And eventually
turned to terror herself.

At some point,
the police found a laptop.

That was a huge coup
for intelligence services.

They got a lot out of that.

She's got photos of herself with her kids.

She's on whatsapp, she's on Facebook.
She listens to beyonce.

She's all of these things that the person
sitting next to you on the bus is.

And she's a jihadi who wants
to blow you up when you go on holiday.

The police found, um...
A journal, a diary.

And there's a bunch of stuff in there,
there was a poem,

"ode to osama."

Thirty-four-line poem she had written

that was,
extolling the virtues of osama bin laden.

It was around this time
that she was photographed

with this guy, Abdul wahid...

Her husband.

Abdul wahid is a former
Kenyan military officer.

He then left the military,
allegedly later defected to al-shabaab.

Al-shabaab movement
have made allegiances

with al quaeda in 2012.

And since then, has organized attacks...

Car bombings, suicide bombings,
land mines,

assassinations.

Because of their brutality,
the people fear them very much.

Samantha, she's one of the key
al-shabaab, or foreign fighter operatives.

It's important to her.

She's a very important role player.

It's a surprising climb up the ladder.

But it's not unheard of.

We've seen other jihadists,
foreign jihadists come to the region

and as they gain symbolic importance,
which Samantha did,

then they do actually become more senior
and start to exert their own influence.

In her diary,
she says that her husband asks

what her children want to be
when they grow up.

And her oldest son and her oldest daughter

answer that they want to be mujahideen.

Warriors, fighters.

This is one of the main
domestic roles for women

within the jihadist network,
and particularly in al-shabaab.

She's raising and encouraging
all of her family members to participate

as a family activity,
in their dedication to the groups cause.

To have any children
with this kind of woman is very important.

Most of the time... her husband dies
and then she remarries.

Because one of her roles
is to produce the future fighters,

produce future leaders.

Aylesbury's a small market town.

Samantha moved there when
she was about 11 years old.

She was born in Ireland. And she went
to school and grew up there.

The break up of her parents' marriage...

Affected her.

She didn't really side
with her father or mother.

And her best friend was a Muslim.

And she spent all her time with her.

This is where she hung around.

And... she lived down here.

When I saw her as a teenager

she was a normal,
usual English flower... child, you know.

Pale skin, light blue eyes.

She had normal friends.

She was a normal child.

The only thing you could say
was a change is she...

She reverts to becoming a Muslim.

But that's the whole point.

She's the girl next door. She looks
very ordinary in British society.

There's nothing you can just say as:
"Here is a monster, here is a demon.

And it's clear because..."

Well, it's not clear.

She's a very ordinary-looking girl.
Doesn't make her any less dangerous.

My god.

Well there's a series of shots
ringing out now

just outside the shopping center.

Black smoke we can see
coming from the top of the building.

We don't know what's going on.

Hello and welcome, I'm Peter Dobby
with the BBC world news. Our top stories:

Gunmen opened fire inside a shopping mall
in the Kenyan capital.

The red cross says at least 22 are dead.

Dozens more are injured.

The government says
it could be dealing with a terror attack.

But has urged people not to speculate.

What happened
at the westgate mall was...

A classic al-shabaab attack.

A complex attack
using inghimasi, or suicide gunmen.

Four of them
approached the westgate mall...

...and entered the mall
from two directions:

The upper floor and the main entrance.

One team started throwing grenades.

They both opened fire and then
worked their way through the mall...

...killing people that they found
inside the structure.

Sixty-one civilians lost their lives
in the attack.

Six security officers
also made the ultimate sacrifice...

To defeat the criminals.

Intelligence reports

had suggested that a British woman

and two or three American citizens

may have been involved in the attack.

We kind of didn't really
understand islamism and islamic terrorism

until 9/11.

We started to become aware?Of these
kind of people. They're spouting...

Things... against our country.

But some of them
are born in this country.

Why are they behaving like this?

Samantha lewthwaite,
very quickly,

she associated with extremist circles.
Straight away.

These eight preachers
were saying things

which were extremely dangerous.

Don't play games
in the globe anymore.

And you, European people,
you will pay the most.

If Samantha lewthwaite
was looking to do something radical,

something dangerous, something
exciting, something lethal...

Well, here we are. It's on a plate.

Just want to bring you some breaking news
concerning the shopping mall seige

in Kenya.
The Kenyan interior minister says

that they are holding eight suspects.

On our broadcast tonight, wanted.

An international arrest warrant has been
issued for the woman who's been called

"the white widow." Question is: "Was she
among the attackers at the mall in Kenya?"

And Interpol has just issued
a worldwide red notice

trying to track down Samantha lewthwaite.

By the time of the attack
on the westgate shopping mall in Nairobi,

it seems her career picked up.

So post-westgate,
I don't think it's particularly surprising

that her name has become

so prominent...

Um, and that she is among

one of the most wanted people
in the world.

What also adds to her prestige,

notoriety, and infamy is the fact
that she's still at large.

Interpol is looking for her.

CIA, mi5, MI6,
they're all looking for her.

She's clearly being protected.
She's clearly in hiding.

Somalia and Kenya
have a long border.

The key is to have contacts

who will guide you
to the border and across

without encountering police posts
or checkpoints.

As soon as you cross the border,
at least in some areas

you're in al-shabaab territory.

If the messages have been passed

she would've been picked up
on the other side of the border

and then taken, to a safe area

and probably a safe house
within that area

where she would've dropped off the radar.

Somebody like Samantha, who has
a huge, international warrant on her

will definitely be taken.

?the reason why I don't like her.

There's nothing to like about a woman
who chooses to be destructive.

We're both from the UK, we're both
the same age, we're both two women.

Involved in security, though she's
insecurity rather than actual security.

So she's touching me on several levels.

As a woman, as a Muslim,
as a security officer.

Of course, it... it's irritating,
to say the least.

Take the main road.
The small streets are blocked.

Okay boss.

Of course,
you remain a target.

I've survived two assassination attempts.

There is still a high price on me,
but I believe you only live once

and if you're gonna live then make sure
that your life means something.

This station here
is a very important junction for US

and the principal threat
is always an explosion.

We have an al-shabaab
terrorism problem here.

So for US we specifically focus
on trying to understand

how al-shabaab works.

How they operate, what they do,
how they recruit,

and so on and so forth.

Of course, it is very important

to arrest somebody like Samantha.

To extract information from her
is also important.

And she's also dangerous. There is also
that we are removing a threat.

I don't see Samantha
as different from any other mafia boss

to be honest with you.

There's financial interest,
there's popularity interest.

There's everything, but religion.

She knows she's wanted.

She's under big surveillance,
so she doesn't stay in one place.

She has to move around a lot.

In areas under shabaab control,

al-shabaab is routinely

executing people accused of spying.

So for someone to denounce Samantha...

Pass information about her whereabouts,
is very risky.

We have been monitoring
her movement and her presence

sometimes at the border
between Somalia and Kenya.

Actually there was a time
we were almost closing down on her.

She was in jilib.

But, it's not easy to arrest her

because she's in...
Al-shabaab controlled territory

we don't have
those operational capabilities.

She's out of reach, basically.

We were not able to use,
drones against her

because she is a British citizen
and it is not...

Legally allowed by the UK law
to do this kind of assassination.

With British law, the focus is to get...

The person, not kill the person.

Knowing where she is doesn't mean
that she can be reached

by law enforcement
or intelligence agencies

without, also taking real risks...

Um, or causing
a lot of civilian casualties.

So monitoring her may be the best that
the intelligence community could do.

She has dedicated her life
to what she is: A terrorist.

And she must be happy
with what she's doing.

Um... but she's got no way back.
I mean, that is it.

It means she can't travel freely anywhere.

The brits
and the international authorities

are not going to let her?Once again
disappear for five years and then

pop up on another fake passport.

For somebody like Samantha,
she cannot survive in Somalia.

These people have a "sell by" date.

She's obviously developed
a trade craft that keeps her safe.

Not talking on the telephone, coded
messages passed between individuals.

But I know one thing...
She won't survive forever.

She certainly won't.