Three Charged in Britain in Connection With Tel Aviv Bombing

LONDON – Three people arrested in England in connection with a homicide bombing in Israel were charged Thursday with terrorism offenses, police said.

Police arrested six people in central England and London last week following the April 30 Tel Aviv bombing, which killed three people at Mike's Place (search), a bar.

Israeli police said the bomber was a Briton, Asif Hanif, 21, from the London suburb of Hounslow and that another man, Omar Khan Sharif, 27, of Derby in central England, fled the scene of the bombing when his explosives failed to detonate.

Scotland Yard (search) announced Thursday that Paveen Akthor Sharif, a 35-year-old woman, was charged under Britain's Anti-Terrorism Act that relates to aiding acts of terrorism overseas.

She and a 46-year-old man, Zahid Hussain Sharif, and a 27-year-old woman Tahari Shad Tabassum from Derby, also were charged with failure to disclose information about terrorist acts.

All three were to appear in a London court on Friday.

Police said that two suspects have the surname Sharif and are from Derby, but did not say if they were related to the suspect who fled Israel.

Two other men and a woman who had been arrested and questioned were released without charge.

Israeli police have been searching for Sharif since the attack, focusing their manhunt on south Tel Aviv, a rundown area popular with foreign workers.

The Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack.

In Britain, the militant Islamic group Al-Muhajiroun said Sharif had attended one or two lectures given by the group's leader, Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed.

The group recruits on university campuses and encourages members to join armed struggles abroad. It says its goal is to make Britain an Islamic state. A spokesman denied that the men were members of Al-Muhajiroun.