Dubbed the White Widow, the mother-of-four was married to a London suicide bomber and has since been named as a suspect in several major terrorist plots around the world.
Wanted by Interpol, she has most recently reported to have been training recruits for terrorist organisation ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria].
Yesterday a Russian news agency, Regnum, reported that Lewthwaite was killed while fighting as a sniper in Ukraine – but this has not yet been confirmed by independent sources and there has been speculation it could be propaganda.
“One of the world’s most wanted terrorists Samantha Lewthwaite who fought as part of a Ukrainian battalion has been killed by a volunteer sniper,” said the news agency report from Moscow.
“The Russian sniper who killed the British terrorist now has a price of nearly one million dollars on his head from Ukrainian special services.”
Born in Northern Ireland and raised in the UK, Lewthwaite converted to Islam as a teenager after her parents split up. She became increasingly devout and married Germaine Lindsay, who blew himself up on a Tube train in the London 7/7 bomb attacks in 2005 and with whom she had two children.
Afterwards, she sold her story to a tabloid newspaper, portraying herself as an innocent wife who had no idea of her then 19-year-old husband’s intentions. But it later emerged she had associated with Mohammad Sidique Khan, who was ringleader of the London bombers, before the attacks.
She allegedly remarried and had third child in the UK before disappearing with her three children in 2009. The following year, she had another child in South Africa. It’s believed the father is Abdi Wahid, a former Kenyan naval officer who defected to terror group al-Shabaab (to which Lewthwaite was also linked).
Lewthwaite was named as a suspect in a terrorist call plot to bomb the Kenyan port city of Mombasa in 2012 and other activity in East Africa. She was also alleged to have been involved in the deadly terror siege at a shopping mall in Nairobi in 2013.
Lewthwaite’s family – including her ex-British soldier dad and Irish Catholic mum – was distraught by her transformation from ordinary schoolgirl into suspected terrorist.
