British interior minister Charles Clarke hotly denied on Wednesday having told European Union counterparts that the suspects in last week's London bomb attacks had been arrested in the past. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Clarke had told a meeting in Brussels that some of the suspect team had been "subject to partial arrest" last year. "It's completely and utterly untrue. I am absolutely staggered he should make that assertion," Clarke, Britain's Home Secretary, told Sky Television. Sarkozy had told a news conference after Clarke briefed EU justice and home affairs ministers that it seemed some of the suspect team had been "subject to partial arrest ... in spring 2004". Clarke, visibly angry, said he had no idea what basis Sarkozy had for his remarks, "certainly not from any conversation I, or any of my ministerial colleagues, or anybody in this delegation have had", according to Reuters.
