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Chemical weapon suspect: No bail
LONDON, England (CNN) -- A north African man was refused bail on a chemical weapons charge in London as police questioned four others arrested in the latest of a series of counter-terrorism raids around Britain. Mouloud Bouhrama, 31, was arrested a week ago after police investigations into the discovery of the deadly toxin ricin in a north London flat earlier this month. He denied a charge of conspiring with others "to develop or produce a chemical weapon" but was refused bail and remanded in custody until February 5. Bouhrama's arrest came three weeks after police said they found ricin -- one of the world's deadliest poisons -- in a north London flat on January 5. Greater Manchester police said they had arrested four men on Wednesday morning in the latest operations. The four, aged 30, 32, 35 and 31, were being taken to London for questioning by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch. Two of the arrests were made in the Manchester suburb of Hulme while the third was in Bury, to the north of the city, early on Wednesday. The fourth came later in the morning when a north African man was detained in Stretford, south Manchester. The first arrests came on January 5 when police detained seven men at two addresses in north and east London. In addition to traces of ricin, officers found equipment that could be used to produce the poison. Later, three North Africans were arrested after the stabbing death of Manchester police officer Stephen Oake and wounding of four other officers in a raid on January 14 connected with the ricin investigation. Kamel Bourgass, 27, faces murder and attempted murder charges. Police said Wednesday's raids were not connected with the murder earlier this month of Detective Constable Oake. Last week in the ricin investigation, investigators searched the Finsbury Park Mosque and two adjacent apartments, both of which belonged to the mosque. Along with fake passports, police found a large number of fake credit cards and IDs, a stun gun, a tear gas canister and a starting pistol. (Full story) Police do not suspect that ricin or any other harmful chemical substances are in the mosque. The mosque is known for its radical brand of Islam and its support of al Qaeda. The top cleric of the mosque, Sheikh Abu Hamza, is suspected by law enforcement in Britain of having direct connections to Osama bin Laden. (Hamza profile) U.S. officials have said they believe the arrested suspects have ties to bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, specifically to "associates" of senior al Qaeda figure Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, a senior official told CNN. Zarqawi has also been connected by U.S. intelligence to those involved in the October assassination in Amman, Jordan, of American diplomat Lawrence Foley, officials said. More than 200 people have been arrested in Britain under anti-terror legislation since September 11, 2001, with several dozen currently awaiting trial. Most are North Africans, with the majority of those coming from Algeria.
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