Briton in Kenya trial 'linked to London bomber widow'

MOMBASA, Kenya (AFP) - A Briton on trial in Kenya accused of a bomb plot was working with the fugitive widow of a British suicide bomber who attacked the London Underground in 2005, prosecutors charged Thursday.

Briton Jermaine Grant and two other suspects were arrested in December in the Kenyan port city after they were found with various chemicals, batteries and switches which prosecutors say they planned to use to make explosives.

Prosecutor Jacob Ondari said Grant, a 29-year-old Muslim convert, was working with fellow Briton Samantha Lewthwaite, whose is on the run over terror plot allegations, and is the widow of London bomber Jermaine Lindsay.

"It is our belief that she (Lewthwaite) is connected with Grant and that they were working together... She is believed to be the financier of the whole thing," Ondari said.

Grant has denied the charges.

However, he has pleaded guilty to charges of being in the country illegally and lying about his nationality, for which he was sentenced in December last year to two jail terms of two years, to run concurrently.

The trial will resume on August 15. Grant is charged along with his Kenyan wife, Warda Breik Islam.

Lindsay blew himself up on a London Underground train on July 7, 2005, killing 26 people.

Lewthwaite, a 28-year old mother of three and daughter of a British soldier, is wanted by Kenyan police, and is believed to travelling on a forged South African passport under the name Natalie Faye Webb.

Grant is believed to have become radicalised as a teenager in the same British prison where "shoe bomber" Richard Reid first turned to Islam.

Reid, who claimed he was an Al-Qaeda recruit, is serving a life sentence in the United States for trying to blow up a flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001 using bombs hidden in his shoes.