September 11, 2008
LONDON: Seven men suspected of plotting to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006 face a retrial after a jury in London failed to reach verdicts.
Their trial ended on Monday with three of the British Muslims convicted of complicity to murder, a charge the trio had admitted to - but with no one found guilty specifically of attempting to bring down airliners.
Their arrest in August 2006 over a plot allegedly involving the smuggling of explosive liquids onto aircraft in soft drinks bottles led to strict worldwide restrictions on liquids that travellers can take onboard flights.
Britain has remained on its second highest terror alert level since.
In a statement, chief prosecutor Ken Macdonald said that following discussions with his team, the prosecution would apply to retry each of the defendants on every charge that the jury could not agree on.
“This will include a count (charge) that each defendant conspired to detonate improvised explosive devices on transatlantic passenger aircraft. We shall be returning to court to make this application in due course,” he said.
The men allegedly targeted seven flights from London's main Heathrow airport - to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal - operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, described by prosecutors as the leader of an Islamist cell, was convicted of conspiring to murder hundreds of people, as were two others, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, after the 3 1/2 month trial.
But the jury failed to reach verdicts on four other defendants: Umar Islam, Arafat Waheed Khan, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Zaman. An eighth, Mohammed Gulzar, was cleared on all counts.
Amid police frustration at the failure to convict anyone of trying to bring down aircraft, a former senior officer said Britain had been forced to make arrests in the case earlier than planned after another suspect was arrested in Pakistan, allegedly at the behest of US authorities.
The men allegedly aimed to use hydrogen peroxide liquid explosives injected into plastic drinks bottles to cause “a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale,” prosecutor Peter Wright told the trial.
They were “not long off” putting their plan into action and had talked of up to 18 different suicide bombers targeting seven or even more flights, he alleged.
Ali also admitted in court to having considered setting off a device at the Houses of Parliament in central London in a bid to attract attention to an online documentary attacking British and American foreign policy.
LONDON: Seven men suspected of plotting to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean in 2006 face a retrial after a jury in London failed to reach verdicts.
Their trial ended on Monday with three of the British Muslims convicted of complicity to murder, a charge the trio had admitted to - but with no one found guilty specifically of attempting to bring down airliners.
Their arrest in August 2006 over a plot allegedly involving the smuggling of explosive liquids onto aircraft in soft drinks bottles led to strict worldwide restrictions on liquids that travellers can take onboard flights.
Britain has remained on its second highest terror alert level since.
In a statement, chief prosecutor Ken Macdonald said that following discussions with his team, the prosecution would apply to retry each of the defendants on every charge that the jury could not agree on.
“This will include a count (charge) that each defendant conspired to detonate improvised explosive devices on transatlantic passenger aircraft. We shall be returning to court to make this application in due course,” he said.
The men allegedly targeted seven flights from London's main Heathrow airport - to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal - operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, described by prosecutors as the leader of an Islamist cell, was convicted of conspiring to murder hundreds of people, as were two others, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, after the 3 1/2 month trial.
But the jury failed to reach verdicts on four other defendants: Umar Islam, Arafat Waheed Khan, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Zaman. An eighth, Mohammed Gulzar, was cleared on all counts.
Amid police frustration at the failure to convict anyone of trying to bring down aircraft, a former senior officer said Britain had been forced to make arrests in the case earlier than planned after another suspect was arrested in Pakistan, allegedly at the behest of US authorities.
The men allegedly aimed to use hydrogen peroxide liquid explosives injected into plastic drinks bottles to cause “a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale,” prosecutor Peter Wright told the trial.
They were “not long off” putting their plan into action and had talked of up to 18 different suicide bombers targeting seven or even more flights, he alleged.
Ali also admitted in court to having considered setting off a device at the Houses of Parliament in central London in a bid to attract attention to an online documentary attacking British and American foreign policy.
Source:The Australian
Posts
