Samantha Lewthwaite

Samantha Louise Lewthwaite (born 5 December 1983), also called Sherafiyah Lewthwaite and widely known as the White Widow, is a British terrorist and suspected mass murderer. During the early 2010s, she was among the most wanted terrorism suspects in the Western world. She is accused of involvement in the deaths of more than 400 people. Lewthwaite is the widow of Germaine Lindsay, the 7/7 London bomber. By 2022, she had not been heard from for several years.

She is alleged to be a member of Al-Shabaab, a radical Islamic militant group based in Somalia. Authorities accuse her of organizing grenade attacks on non-Muslim places of worship. She is also believed to have been behind an attack on people watching football at a bar in Mombasa during Euro 2012. In September 2013, there was speculation that she might have been involved in the Nairobi Westgate shopping mall attack, though other reports questioned this or said her role had been overstated. The media coined the nickname "White Widow," playing on her race and her husband's death, similar to the term "Black Widows" used for Chechen female suicide bombers.

Lewthwaite was born in Banbridge, County Down, in 1983 to Andrew and Elizabeth Christine Lewthwaite. Her father, a former British Army soldier in the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, met her mother while stationed in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. After her birth, the family lived briefly in Northern Ireland, where her father drove lorries, before settling in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. She attended The Elmhurst School and The Grange School, and began a bachelor's degree in Politics and Religion at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, but dropped out.

Her parents separated in 1994. Friends later said she was deeply affected by the breakup and sought comfort from Muslim neighbours, whom she saw as having stronger family networks. Born a Christian, she converted to Islam by age 17, taking the name Sherafiyah. She met Germaine Lindsay online and arranged to meet him at a Stop the War march in Hyde Park, London. They married in Aylesbury on 30 October 2002, using the Islamic names Asmantara and Jamal. Her parents, who never accepted her conversion, refused to attend.

Three years later, on 7 July 2005, Lindsay detonated a bomb on a train between King's Cross and Russell Square tube stations, killing 26 civilians. Lewthwaite was eight months pregnant with their second child, a daughter, at the time. Their first child, a son, was 14 months old. She reported her husband missing six days after the bombings by calling a helpline for victims' families. She denied knowing about the attacks beforehand. After an attempt to set fire to her home, she was placed in protective custody in a police safe house. At the inquest, it was revealed that she had associated with Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the London bombers, before the attacks.

In September 2005, she sold her story to the tabloid The Sun for £30,000, portraying herself as a victim and her husband as a recent convert tricked by extremists. The Independent reported that her account conflicted with evidence from Lindsay's sister, who said he had converted to Islam at age 15. Families of the victims were unconvinced by her portrait of the bomber, and her attempts to shift blame were criticized. The Yorkshire Post noted that while she had not broken the law, the spirit of the law against criminals profiting from their crimes had been breached.

After the bombings, The Daily Telegraph reported in September 2013 that Lewthwaite was believed to have met and married Habib Saleh Ghani, born in Hounslow, London in 1985. Ghani, also known as Abu Usama al-Pakistani, moved to Kenya in 2007, where his mother was born. His father emigrated to Britain from Pakistan. Ghani had been a contemporary of Asif Mohammed Hanif at Hounslow Jamia Masjid and Islamic Centre; Hanif killed himself and three others at a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003. Lewthwaite gave birth to a third child in 2009, but the father was not named on the birth certificate. She reportedly moved to northern England, then disappeared with her children, believed to be hiding in Tanzania or Somalia. A later Telegraph report, citing Kenyan anti-terrorist police, cast doubt on the marriage to Ghani, stating there was no romantic relationship, only that they were linked through associates in the same Mombasa cell that planned bombings in December 2011. In May 2014, the Daily Mirror reported that Lewthwaite had married Hassan Maalim Ibrahim, a senior Al-Shabaab commander.

In February 2012, anti-terrorist police in Nairobi issued an arrest warrant for a white woman using the false name Natalie Faye Webb. This woman had used a fraudulently obtained South African passport. After consulting with Scotland Yard, police said she was known to use at least three separate identities, including her real one.