Police investigate emails sent to John Howell in connection with Manchester synagogue attack

COUNTERTERRORISM police are to investigate whether the Manchester synagogue attacker made death threats against Henley’s former MP more than a decade ago.

John Howell, who was the Conservative MP for Henley and Thame from 2008 until last year, received a number of threatening emails over his views on Israel in 2012.

The correspondence came after Mr Howell, a former member of the Parliamentary Group Conservative Friends of Israel, spoke about Israel’s right to defend itself when it came under rocket fire.

The Times reported that one of the emails was from a “Jihad Alshamie”, who wrote: “It is people like you who deserve to die.”

The paper understands that the correspondence will form part of Greater Manchester police’s investigation into Thursday’s synagogue attack, in which two people were fatally stabbed.

The attack came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and is being treated by police as a terror incident.

The Times said officers will now try to determine whether the attacker, named by police last night as Jihad Al-Shamie, is the same person who wrote to Mr Howell in 2012.

Following the threats, Mr Howell was offered police protection and was forced to remove the details of his constituency office from his website. He said he feared for his life.

The death threats were sent after his email exchange with a constituent in Watlington, about Israel’s military action, were posted on Facebook.

The constituent had sent Howell an email asking what he would do “to see that Israel halts the military actions that are taking place in defiance of international law and basic human decency.”

He attached a photograph of an exploding building, purportedly of a recent attack in Gaza, although other reports say the picture was in circulation in 2009.

Mr Howell responded, asking for his constituent's view “on the 100 rockets which have landed in Israel over the weekend?”

The Jerusalem Post, which covered the incident at the time, reported that Howell recovered around 30 emails after the exchange was placed on Facebook, some of which he described as “worrying.”

The post reported that the former MP received a series of emails from someone calling himself “Jihad Alshamie,” who told him: “It is people like you who deserve to die.”

The Times say it is unclear whether police tracked down the senders of all the emails and it has been reported that those issues are being determined in the present investigation.

In an update yesterday, counterterrorism police said that based on what was currently known and their records do not show any previous Prevent referrals relating to Al-Shamie.

It confirmed that three suspects are currently in custody and have been arrested on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism. They are two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.

Mr Howell declined to comment.