LONDON/BRUSSELS, July 13: British Interior Secretary Charles Clarke on Wednesday hotly denied having told European Union counterparts that some of the suspects in the bomb attacks had been arrested in the past.

French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters in Brussels, after Mr Clarke briefed EU justice and home affairs ministers, that some of the suspect group had been ‘subject to partial arrest’ last year.

“It’s completely and utterly untrue. I am absolutely staggered he should make that assertion,” Mr Clarke told Sky Television.

Mr Sarkozy had told a news conference that it seemed some of the suspect team had been ‘subject to partial arrest ... in spring 2004’.

A French spokesman later clarified that Mr Sarkozy had not been referring to the four main suspected bombers but to other members of a group or network to which they belonged. He also said Mr Sarkozy had been speaking from his own information and not quoting Mr Clarke.

The British minister, visibly angry, said he had no idea what basis Mr Sarkozy had for his remarks, ‘certainly not from any conversation I, or any of my ministerial colleagues, or anybody in this delegation have had’.

Asked whether he had asked Mr Sarkozy to retract the remarks, Mr Clarke said: “No. I haven’t seen him. He left the Council half way through. He didn’t feel it appropriate to stay till the end of the discussions. That perhaps is his style. But he’s a great leader for France and I wish him all the best.”

The row was another setback to Franco-British relations after recent public acrimony over the EU budget and the future of Europe’s social model.—Reuters