Jeremy Corbyn's support for two people who were jailed for their part in the bombing of Israel's embassy in London was “clear and blatant support of terrorism” and as bad as his attendance at a ceremony that honoured Black September terrorists, the ambassador at the time of the attack has said.

Mr Corbyn was part of a campaign to free Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, who were convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions after two car bomb attacks in London on July 26, 1994.

The first bomb exploded at the Israeli embassy, injuring 14 people. Thirteen hours later, a second bomb exploded, injuring six more people, outside Balfour House in North Finchley, the headquarters of a number of Jewish charities, including the Joint Israel Appeal, the forerunner of the UJIA.

Moshe Raviv, who was ambassador from 1993 to 1998, was in Israel at the time of the bombing and was speaking to his assistant in London when the line went dead.

Mr Raviv told the JC: “The southern part of the embassy, the wall behind my desk, was destroyed. There was glass everywhere. Some of our staff were injured...

“It was by sheer luck, just by sheer luck, that people were only injured and nobody was killed.”

Mr Raviv said Mr Corbyn's support for the convicted pair was “extremely disappointing, to see a member of Parliament supporting perpetrators of such a horrible act of terror.”

The ex-ambassador said: “We knew Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Israel attitude... But to support terrorism, this was very disappointing.

"Even to the present day, it is hard to believe how he could do this, especially, when the High Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights upheld the conviction. I think it shows what kind of attitude Corbyn had towards Palestinian terrorists.”

As a furious row rages over whether Mr Corbyn laid a wreath at a 2014 ceremony in Tunis honouring the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich massacre, Mr Raviv said Mr Corbyn “had not changed his views and support for terrorism… this was not a one-time event.

"In London he supported the convicted terrorists - a straight line can be seen from there to what happened in Tunisia.”

When asked whether he had a message for Mr Corbyn, Mr Raviv said: “There is not much I can say – it is he that has to say, it is he who has to explain why he supported terrorism, why he supported the killing or injuring of innocent people, supported the perpetrators of this heinous attack.

“It is him, he has to do the explaining.”

In 2013, Mr Corbyn wrote a letter on parliamentary stationery, saying he had supported Botmeh “in Parliament and outside, including in meetings/demonstrations. Jawad’s case is, I believe, a miscarriage of justice.”

Both Alami and Botmeh pleaded not guilty and maintained they had nothing to do with the bombings. However, Alami admitted that, 13 days before the bombings, she had accepted two boxes, which contained quantities of the explosive TATP.

As reported by the JC at the time, she also acknowledged renting a private box number in someone else's name so that, she claimed, "political” literature would not be sent to the family home.

She had also used a false name to rent a storage unit in Acton, West London, where police found two improvised bombs made from TATP, electrical timers, guns and ammunition.

When detectives searched an apartment said to be owned by a family member of Alami, they found, behind a trap door, a Cobra pistol with ammunition and documents including some from a book entitled "The Engineering of Explosives."

At the trial, Botmeh said that he and Alami had experimented with explosives, and tested them in remote areas of the Peak District.

He maintained that the explosives he was testing were for use in territories occupied by Israel, rather than in Britain. He also admitted he was connected with the bomb-making equipment discovered in Acton, but claimed he had hidden it there in a “panic” after hearing about the explosions at the Israeli embassy and Balfour House.

Botmeh had also been identified as one of two men who purchased one of the cars subsequently used in the attack.

At the Old Bailey trial, as the JC reported at the time, Michael Mansfield QC, representing the defendants, showed the jury a 30-minute film concerning the First Intifada. 

Mr Mansfield said he wanted the jury to get “a flavour of the daily life of Palestinians… what happened there has ramifications here.”

Mr Mansfield also submitted letters containing leniency pleas to the judge, including one from Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian politician, who said that injustice had led to people carrying out acts which would not have taken place “in normal circumstances.”

The two were convicted in December 1996. An appeal was dismissed in 2001. In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a second appeal, saying previously undisclosed evidence added "nothing of significance to what had already been disclosed at trial".

After their appeals failed, Botmeh was released in 2008 and Alami was released in 2009.

Between 2001 and 2005, Mr Corbyn signed five early day motions, including co-sponsoring one, calling for the pair's release.

The EDMs said “Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh have always protested their innocence” and say the convictions had been “widely questioned”.

They referred to “unanswered questions” and the suggestion that “the United Kingdom’s reputation is ill-served by jailing the wrong people”.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Mr Corbyn said: "Jeremy believed that there had been a miscarriage of justice. He, of course, condemns all terrorist acts."