Arrests England

An engineer from Dayton, N.J., who told his wife he was taking their children to work as part of Take Our Daughters to Work Day was arrested with the girls in London. Investigators believe Sanjay K. Soni, 35, planned to take the girls, ages 3 and 7, to Bangalore, India. He had purchased tickets for India Air Flight 102 on April 16, police said. Soni is charged with interfering with the custody of the girls.

A U.S. businessman who once controlled Orange County electronics manufacturer Statek Corp. has been arrested in London and accused of plotting to kill three American lawyers and two Swiss executives in a dispute over control of the company. Frederick Johnston, 71, a former director of Statek and its holding company, Technicorp International II, is being held without bail after being arrested Tuesday by Scotland Yard detectives. He faces charges of solicitation of murder.

British police arrested a woman Friday in connection with the alleged theft of letters written by Princess Diana to her lover, James Hewitt. Anna Ferretti was taken into custody at Waterloo International train station, where she was believed to be headed for France. Police said she was arrested on allegations of theft but gave no other details.

A British man trapped the thief who stole his pager by leaving a message saying he had won $835 in a competition. David Withers lost the pager when someone broke into his car. Builder Justin Clark, ensnared in the simplest of stings, was fined $251 for being in possession of stolen property after answering the message. Withers said that soon after he left the message, "my mobile [phone] rang, and a shady-sounding voice asked about the prize."

Part of the $3 million in jewelry stolen last month in London from two executives of the Bijan store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills has been recovered and eight arrests have been made, according to a Scotland Yard official. "What we were told by Scotland Yard in a fax is that the majority has been recovered," said Bijan spokesperson Brett Neubig. The police have not identified for the jewelers which of the pieces have been recovered, Neubig said.

Irish police raided several houses in Ireland while Scotland Yard questioned five Irish Republican Army suspects arrested in a series of raids in and near London that uncovered 10 tons of explosives. No arrests were made in Ireland, and police in Dublin refused to confirm or deny that the searches in County Monaghan and County Longford were related to the discovery in Britain of the explosives and arms.

Amid dimming hopes for peace in Northern Ireland, British police won a new battle in their war with the Irish Republican Army on Monday, seizing terrorist suspects, weapons and enough ready-to-blow explosives to cripple a major city. One man died in an orchestrated series of dawn raids; five other suspects were arrested in what police portrayed as a major victory that short-circuited imminent, deadly terrorist violence.

Armed Iraqi hijackers surrendered Tuesday after freeing all passengers and crew members aboard a Sudanese airliner, ending a 16-hour drama that began on a flight from Sudan to Jordan. All the hostages were unharmed. Seven Iraqis, some carrying guns, were arrested shortly after noon at London's Stansted Airport. Essex County police spokeswoman Heather Watts said late Tuesday that no further arrests were anticipated.

Police arrested a neighborhood man after a machete attack at St. Luke's Church of England primary school in Wolverhampton injured seven students and adults. Officers found Horrett Campbell, 32, hiding in a closet in his apartment. Witnesses said Campbell jumped two fences at the school Monday and used a machete to slash adults and children at a tea for preschoolers.

Police arrested two suspected terrorists here Monday in the aftermath of an Irish Republican Army bus bombing that killed one person, injured eight and brought dread back to the streets of this gridlocked capital. As the workweek started, tens of thousands of commuters sought to find a way to work after police sealed off a swath of central London--with the bombed carcass of the No. 171 red double-decker bus as its epicenter.