Lone Suspect Charged With Murder in 3 London Blasts

LONDON — There was no conspiracy. No links to organized neo-Nazis. Just a 22-year-old engineer with do-it-yourself bombs and some kind of private grudge.

That is the portrait Scotland Yard painted Sunday of the man charged with murder and igniting explosions with intent to kill in connection with three nail bombings in London that left three people dead, more than 100 maimed, bloodied and burned, and an entire capital in fear.

Although several extremist racist groups claimed responsibility for last month’s blasts in black, Asian and gay neighborhoods, police say the suspect, David Copeland, acted on his own.

“There is no suggestion at this stage that the arrest is linked in any way to the extreme right-wing groups which have been reportedly claiming responsibility for these attacks on innocent people,” said Assistant Police Commissioner David Veness.

“There appears to be no trigger event or specific date which has sparked these attacks, which were clearly the responsibility of the same person,” Veness said.

A lone gunman, but one who opted for explosives and shrapnel to maximize pain and suffering.

Scores of people were wounded by the nail bombs detonated in Saturday afternoon street markets in the African-Caribbean Brixton community April 17 and in Brick Lane, a Bangladeshi neighborhood, on April 24. The third bomb blew up Friday in the central Soho district in a crowded pub that is popular with gays, leaving three patrons dead and more than 60 people wounded.

Witnesses reported seeing a white man with a goatee, a baseball cap and a sports bag in the bar just before the blast. The bag was discovered moments before it exploded in flashes of light, metal and sulfur smoke.

Among those killed were a pregnant woman and a friend who had been best man at her wedding 20 months earlier. Her husband is hospitalized after a leg amputation.

Police said all three bombs were “relatively rudimentary” devices made of readily available materials and packed with nails and other bits of metal. Each bomb was about the size of a shoe box.

Copeland was arrested Saturday during a predawn raid on his home in Cove, about 30 miles southwest of London, where police said they recovered explosive materials. He was formally charged Sunday and is to appear in court today.

Neighbors have said they knew little about the young white man who lived in a semidetached house on a quiet street called Sunnybank Road. Copeland apparently had lived there for about a year.

The media had been focusing their attention on neo-Nazi groups called Combat 18 and the White Wolves, both of which claimed responsibility for the bombings and sent threatening letters to minority leaders. But the groups appear to be opportunists, trying to cash in on someone else’s campaign of terror.

Copeland’s capture came as a result of a closed-circuit television in Brixton, police said. After the April 17 explosion, which wounded 39 people, police pored over hundreds of hours of footage from more than 50 cameras located around the Brixton market and subway.

Nonetheless, civil liberties groups have warned against the excessive use and potential misuse of electronic surveillance in Britain, which reportedly has more closed-circuit cameras per capita than any other country.