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British Police Hold 5 on Terror Charges as Pope Visits
As Pope Benedict XVI embarked on some of the most symbolic overtures of his state visit to London, the British police arrested five men early Friday on terrorism charges related to his stay here but gave no specific details of any threat against him.
On a day when Benedict became the first pope to set foot on some of the most hallowed ground of the Anglican Church and British secular authority, the police and the Vatican said he would not change his long-planned itinerary because of the arrest of what the municipal authorities in central London described as five street cleaners. News reports said they were Algerians working in an area the pope was set to visit.
After the arrests, the British police were “satisfied that our current policing plan is appropriate” to ensure the pope’s safety, a police spokeswoman said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of police rules. Britain’s broader terrorism threat assessment level was not increased.
On the second day of a four-day visit partly overshadowed by the sexual abuse crisis enfolding the Roman Catholic Church and partly evoking the Vatican’s historically troubled relationship with the Church of England, the pope visited with Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Communion that grew from the 16th-century schism when Henry VIII broke with Rome. The meeting took place at Lambeth Palace, the archbishop’s official seat.
Speaking alongside the archbishop, the pope renewed criticism of increasing secularism, saying “the surrounding culture is growing ever more distant from its Christian roots, despite a deep and widespread hunger for spiritual nourishment.”
Later, Benedict was to address a panoply of the nation’s political leaders — including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a high-profile convert to Catholicism — in the ornate chamber of Westminster Hall within the Houses of Parliament.
Historically, the vaulted, medieval hall carries heady symbolism. It was there that Sir Thomas More, a Catholic, was tried and convicted of treason in 1535. He was subsequently executed. In 1935, Pope Pius XI canonized him on the 400th anniversary of his death.
Later on Friday, the pope and the archbishop planned to mark a moment of ecumenical symbolism, praying together in a display of unity at Westminster Abbey, the spiritual heart of the Church of England. But the arrests seemed to inject a jarring note into a day planned as a display of harmony and reconciliation.
The police spokeswoman said that counterterrorism officers raided offices in central London at 5:45 a.m. and that five men, between 26 and 50 years old, were in custody “on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” It was not clear if the arrests were precautionary or related to a conspiracy actually under way.
Police officers subsequently searched offices and homes in north and east London, but no “hazardous materials” were reported to have been found.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters that the pope had been informed of the threat while meeting Catholic schoolchildren at Saint Mary’s University chapel at Twickenham, in southwest London, on Friday morning.
“We have complete trust in the police,” Father Lombardi said. “The police are taking the necessary measures, there is no need to change plans.”
He added: “The situation is not particularly dangerous. The pope is happy about this trip, and calm.”
Concern about papal security has persisted since a Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca, tried to kill Benedict’s predecessor, John Paul II, in St. Peter’s Square in Rome in May 1981. Since then, the pope has traveled with a significant security detail, protected by bulletproof glass on his “popemobile” and by bodyguards alongside it. His convoy was escorted on Friday by a about dozen motorcycle outriders. For all that, Benedict mingled openly with schoolchildren when he arrived in southwest London on Friday.
In April, Reuters reported, two Moroccan students deported from Italy were suspected of plotting to assassinate the pope, strengthening suspicions that affiliates of Al Qaeda in North Africa were seeking potential recruits in Italy and arranging financing for attacks elsewhere in Europe.
Britain is currently assessing the threats to its security, according to a speech on Thursday by Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, the domestic security service. Britain has frequently been on high terror alerts since July 2005, when four suicide bombers killed 52 people in attacks on the London transit system.
In the speech, Mr. Evans said that the authorities had revised an earlier view that dissident groups in Northern Ireland would present an increasingly feeble threat as peace takes root in the British province.
“On the contrary, we have seen a persistent rise in terrorist activity and ambition in Northern Ireland over the last three years,” he said.
He also said that of all conspiracies against Britain, the proportion emanating from Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas had fallen to around 50 percent from around 75 percent three years ago as the authorities have detected increased terrorist activity among Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen.
There was no indication, however, that those remarks directly presaged the reported threat to the pope.
While the police said that Benedict’s itinerary had not been disrupted, reporters on the ground said his schedule seemed to have slipped somewhat with unusual, if brief, delays after word of the arrests emerged.
The pope arrived in London late Thursday after flying from Rome, then went to Scotland. Speaking to reporters on his plane, he said that church leaders had not been “sufficiently vigilant” or “sufficiently swift and decisive” in cracking down on sexual abusers.
Benedict’s is the first state visit to Britain by a pope in which he met with the queen and political establishment as a fellow head of state. In 1982, John Paul II paid a pastoral visit to Britain but did not meet Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was received by the queen privately.
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