Bombers plot ....[ 391 ]

Monday, 7 September 2009 17:21 UK

Three guilty of airline bomb plot

Tanvir Hussain, Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar were found guilty Three men have been found guilty of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up planes from London to North America with home-made liquid bombs. A Woolwich Crown Court jury convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to activate bombs disguised as drinks. Four other men were found not guilty of involvement in the airline plot. The men's arrests in August 2006 led to new airport restrictions on liquids and brought chaos to travellers. The jury heard that at the time of his arrest the plot's ringleader Ali had identified seven flights leaving Heathrow for San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, New York and Chicago. His so-called "quartermaster", Sarwar, had secured bomb ingredients at his home in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire and a flat in the Walthamstow area of east London had become the bomb factory. There the men put together a special mixture of chemicals that they planned to take in hand luggage in ordinary sports drinks bottles. Ali, Hussain and Sarwar were previously found guilty of conspiracy to murder involving liquid bombs - but that jury could not decide whether the three men's plans extended to detonating the devices on planes. This has brought home to us how potentially vulnerable travel and communication is Baroness Neville Jones Former chairwoman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Liquid bomb plot: what happened The e-mails sent by the bombers Airline trial: The verdicts Now a second jury has decided that such a plan did exist. The plot is believed by intelligence sources to have been directed by al-Qaeda. 'Overcome the threat' With thousands killed in the air, the explosions could have caused more devastation than the September 11 attacks. Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the plot had sparked the largest ever counter-terrorism investigation in the UK, known as Operation Overt. "This case reaffirms that we face a real and serious threat from terrorism," he said. "This was a particularly complex and daring plot which would have led to a terrible attack resulting in major loss of life. "The police, security services and CPS have done an excellent job in bringing these people to justice." Baroness Neville Jones, former chairwoman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, told the BBC: "This has brought home to us how potentially vulnerable travel and communication is." But she added: "What this all shows is that with care, with vigilance, with the expenditure of effort and focus and concentration, the country can overcome this threat to us." Ibrahim Savant, 28, Arafat Khan, 28, Waheed Zaman, 25, and Donald Stewart-Whyte, 23, were all found not guilty of conspiring to murder by blowing up planes. Mr Stewart-Whyte, from High Wycombe, was also cleared of a general charge of conspiracy to murder. The jury failed to reach verdicts on general conspiracy to murder charges against Mr Savant, who was from Stoke Newington, east London, and Mr Khan and Mr Zaman, who were both from Walthamstow. An eighth man, Umar Islam, 31, from Plaistow, east London, was convicted of conspiracy to murder, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on whether he was involved in a plot to blow up aircraft. 'Political stunt' Ali, from Walthamstow, and Hussain, from Leyton, east London, recorded jihadist suicide videos denouncing the West. In his, Ali warned the British public to expect "floods of martyr operations" that would leave body parts scattered in the streets. Their defence was that they had been planning a political stunt, including small explosions only intended to frighten people at airports. These political demonstrations, they said, would be backed up by a documentary they were making about western injustices. The videos they had made were part of that documentary, they said. The world's airlines were thrown into chaos in 2006 after the men's arrests, as security experts immediately introduced restrictions on liquids in hand luggage. Sue Hemming, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said it had been "a calculated and sophisticated plot to create a terrorist event of global proportions". She said the CPS now had seven days to decide whether to seek a retrial of any of the men not found guilty. "The CPS is committed to prosecuting to the full extent of the law those who would use terror to try to achieve their aims, whatever their motivation and their perceived justification," she added. "This trial has been another demonstration of that commitment." The BBC's Andy Tighe said the total cost of the case could be as high as £40m. Airline terror plot: The evidence Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Tanvir Hussain and Assad Sarwar were arrested in August 2006. They were each accused of two charges of conspiracy to murder using home-made explosives. All three were found guilty in an earlier trial of conspiracy to murder involving liquid bombs - but that jury could not decide whether their plans extended to detonating the devices on planes. Now a second jury has decided that such a terror plot did exist.