The shy Home Counties schoolgirl who became the world's most wanted woman: How the White Widow of the 7/7 terror attacks has evaded capture for 20 years and is linked to the slaughter of more than 200 people

Daily Mail​

07-07-2025

Decked out in a pink ball gown, chunky gold earrings and a sparkling tiara, she could be any happy, ordinary schoolgirl on the cusp of adulthood.
Glancing at this photo of Samantha Lewthwaite enjoying an end-of-year ball at her school in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, it's hard to imagine the dark journey she was about to embark on.
Lewthwaite gained notoriety as the wife of 19-year-old Germaine Lindsay, who killed 26 people - including himself - when he blew himself up on the London Underground during the 7/7 bombings on July 7, 2005.
Now a member of Somali terror group al-Shabab and widely known as 'the White Widow', she's been linked to more than 240 murders in a string of suicide attacks across Africa.
An Interpol 'Red Notice' was first issued for her arrest in 2013 after the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya, which left five Britons and 66 other people dead and injured around 200 others.
Lewthwaite has also been linked to a grenade attack on a Mombasa bar that killed three football fans watching an England game in 2012, and the murder of 148 people at a Kenyan university in 2015.
Four years later, she was also accused of helping to plot a terrorist attack on a hotel in Nairobi that claimed 22 lives. Yet despite two decades having passed since 7/7, this white, Christian-born daughter of a former British soldier has never been brought before a court.
Lewthwaite was born in County Down, Northern Ireland, in 1983 - the daughter of an English truck driver who previously served with the British Army during the Troubles.
The photo of her at a school ball was taken in 2001, shortly before her conversion to Islam at the age of 17.
Nothing stuck out about Lewthwaite during her childhood, with Raj Khan - who knew her as a child and went on to become mayor of Aylesbury - remembering her as 'an average, British, young, ordinary girl'.
'She didn't have very good confidence - there was nothing that made me worried about her,' he previously recalled.
One classmate at The Grange School described her as a model student who was popular with teachers.
The man, who was in the same religious education class as her, said: 'From when I first met her she was interested in the religion, she knew a lot about it.
'She never mentioned anything about converting to me but I think it was where everyone knew she was going.
'I think certain people can be easily brainwashed. With her home situation and her parents breaking up, she probably needed something to cling on to and she's gone down the wrong side.'
Lewthwaite was born in County Down, Northern Ireland , in 1983 - the daughter of an English truck driver who previously served with the British Army during the Troubles
Following her conversion to Islam, it appears Lewthwaite fell under the influence of hate preacher Trevor Forrest, or Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal.
Friends believe she was also badly affected by her parents divorce when she was aged 11.
After taking the name Sherafiyah, she moved to London, where in September 2002 she enrolled on a degree course in politics and religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. She dropped out after two months.
Lewthwaite first made contact with her future husband Germaine Lindsay on an online chat room before their first face-to-face meeting at a a Stop The War march.
They married in October 2002 and had a son in April 2004. Lewthwaite was heavily pregnant with their second child when her husband blew himself up in 2007.
Exploiting her sympathetic image as a young mother, Lewthwaite hid her terrorist sympathies and expressed her 'horror' at what Lindsay had done.
She is believed to have left the UK for South Africa in 2008, before returning a year later to have her third third, Abdur-Rahman, at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. The father was listed as Fahmi Salim, a Kenyan with family links to Al-Qaeda.
Shortly afterwards she returned to South Africa, where her fourth child, Surajah was born in July 2010.
An Interpol 'Red Notice' was first issued for her arrest in 2013 after the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya, which left five Britons and 66 other people dead and injured around 200 others
For a time, Lewthwaite is believed to have posed as Natalie Faye Webb, a British nurse whose identity she stole.
Her other rumoured husbands include Abdi Wahid, a Kenyan naval officer turned terrorist, and Hassan Maalim Ibrahim a senior member of al-Shabaab, which is based in Somalia but has staged attacks across East Africa.
Lewthwaite reportedly spent seven years with Ibrahim before splitting from him and fleeing to Yemen.
Intelligence services believe she is living in a jihadi-sympathising stronghold, where she wears a full niqab and gloves to conceal her identity.
In Yemen, she is understood to have recruited female suicide bombers with bribes of £3,000.
She is also thought to have sent male suicide bombers as young as 15, high on heroin, to their deaths.
Her Interpol Red Notice lists her as wanted for being in possession of explosives and for conspiracy to commit a felony.
Controversially, her sordid story is now set to be made into a film, The Girl Next Door, starring The Last of Us star Bella Ramsey.
While little has been heard of Lewthwaite for the last six years, there is hope that her former flatmate, Jermaine Grant, could shed light on her whereabouts.
Grant was arrested by Kenyan authorities in 2011 after they found bomb-making materials in his flat in Mombasa.
He was deported back to Britain last year and could remain behind bars until 2027 unless he is deemed fit for release.
An intelligence source previously told MailOnline that Grant may feel he could help win his early release by providing information that could help in the hunt for Lewthwaite.
They said: 'If he has any information at all that could help in the hunt for Lewthwaite, who has consistently evaded the authorities, it would be invaluable.'