Samantha Lewthwaite

Her father is a former British Army soldier who served in the 9th/12th Royal Lancers and had met her mother while he was stationed in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

Following her birth the family lived for a short period in Northern Ireland, where her father worked as a lorry driver, before settling in Aylesbury, England.

She attended Elmhurst middle school and The Grange secondary school in Aylesbury.

She studied for a politics and religion degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, but dropped out.

Samantha Louise Lewthwaite (born 5 December 1983), also known as Sherafiyah Lewthwaite or the White Widow, is a British terrorist who is one of the Western world's most wanted terrorism suspects.

Lewthwaite, the widow of 7/7 London terrorist bomber Germaine Lindsay, is accused of causing the deaths of more than 400 people.

She is a fugitive from justice in Kenya, where she was wanted on charges of possession of explosives and conspiracy to commit a felony and is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice requesting her arrest with a view to extradition.

Lewthwaite was alleged to be a member of the Somalia-based radical Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab.

Lewthwaite was born to parents Andrew and Elizabeth Christine (née Allen) Lewthwaite in Banbridge, County Down in 1983.

Lewthwaite's parents separated in 1994, and friends later reported that she was "badly affected by the break-up" and "sought solace from Muslim neighbours who she believed had a stronger family network."

Raised as a Christian, by the age of 17 she had converted to Islam.

She adopted the name Sherafiyah at the time of her conversion.

She met Germaine Lindsay on the internet and arranged to meet him at a Stop the War march in Hyde Park, London; they subsequently married in Aylesbury on 30 October 2002, using the Islamic names Asmantara and Jamal.

Lewthwaite's parents, who "never came to terms with their daughter's conversion", refused to attend the ceremony.

Hanif killed himself and three others at "Mike's Place", a bar in Tel Aviv, in April 2003, after possibly being recruited by Hamas in Damascus, Syria.

Three years later, at 8:50 a.m. on 7 July 2005, Lindsay blew himself up on a train travelling between King's Cross and Russell Square tube stations.

He killed 26 civilians in his suicide attack.

Lewthwaite was eight months pregnant with their second child, a daughter, at the time of his death, and their first child, a son, was 14 months old.

Lewthwaite reported her husband missing six days after the bombing by telephoning a helpline set up for families of the victims.

She denied prior knowledge of the attacks and said:

"I totally condemn and am horrified by the atrocities. I am the wife of Germaine Lindsay, and never predicted or imagined that he was involved in such horrific activities. He was a loving husband and father. I am trying to come to terms with the recent events. My whole world has fallen apart, and my thoughts are with the families of the victims of this incomprehensible devastation."

She was placed in protective custody in a police 'safe house' after her home was firebombed in the immediate aftermath of the bombings.

At the inquest into the bombings, it was disclosed that Lewthwaite had associated with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the London bombers, before the attacks.

In September 2005, Lewthwaite was widely criticised for selling her story, in which she portrayed herself as a victim and her husband as a "relatively recent [convert]" who had been "tricked into his actions by extremists", to tabloid newspaper The Sun for £30,000.

The Independent reported that Lewthwaite's account conflicted with evidence from Lindsay's sister that he had actually converted to Islam aged 15, and said that families of the victims were "unconvinced by her portrait of the bomber", while her "attempts to share the blame with others obscured the murder of innocent commuters".

The Yorkshire Post said: "For very good and obvious reasons, there is a law against any criminal profiting from his illegal activities by selling his story to a newspaper. And while the letter of the law has not been broken on this occasion—Ms Lewthwaite is not a criminal—its spirit has clearly been breached."

Ghani, also known as Abu Usama al-Pakistani, first moved to Kenya in 2007, where his mother was born.

His father emigrated to Britain from Pakistan.

Ghani was a contemporary of Asif Mohammed Hanif at Hounslow Jamia Masjid and Islamic Centre.

Lewthwaite gave birth to a third child in 2009, but the father was not named on the birth certificate.

She is reported to have moved to the north of England, then later to have disappeared with her children, and was believed to be in hiding in Tanzania or Somalia.

A later Telegraph report casts doubt on the marriage to Ghani.

She was accused of orchestrating grenade attacks at non-Muslim places of worship, and is believed to have been behind an attack on those watching football in a bar in Mombasa during Euro 2012.

In February 2012, anti-terrorist police in Nairobi, Kenya, issued an arrest warrant for a white woman using the false name of Natalie Faye Webb.

The white woman was known to have used a fraudulently obtained South African passport.

In September 2013, there was speculation over her possible involvement in the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall attack, although other reports cast doubt on this, or said her role had been exaggerated.

She was dubbed the "White Widow" by the news media, a play on words referencing her race and the death of her first husband and the practice of referring to Chechen female suicide bombers as "black widows".

The Daily Telegraph reported in September 2013 that Lewthwaite was subsequently believed to have met and married Habib Saleh Ghani, who was born in Hounslow, London in 1985.

Quoting anti-terrorist police in Kenya, the newspaper said in October 2013 that there was "no romantic relationship between the two", but that they were linked through their "associates in the same cell in Mombasa, that was intending to set off bombs in December 2011".

In May 2014, the Daily Mirror reported that Lewthwaite had married Hassan Maalim Ibrahim, a senior commander with the Al-Shabaab militant group.