Author: Paul Cheston
Publication: Evening Standard
Date: February 17, 2009
URL:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23644945-details/Jet+bombing+plot+was+directed+from+Pakistan%2C+jury+told/article.do
The Islamist extremist plot to blow up transatlantic
passenger jets using British-based suicide bombers was directed from Pakistan,
a court heard today.
Eight men from London and the home counties
intended to arm themselves with homemade bombs disguised as soft drink bottles
to kill hundreds of innocent people, the jury at Woolwich crown court was
told.
Led by ringleaders Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad
Sarwar, they had the "cold-eyed certainty of the fanatic", said
Peter Wright QC, prosecuting.
Even though police moved in when the atrocity
was "almost ready", it caused months of disruption at UK airports.
Mr Wright said: "It is the Crown's case
that this plot was being directed from Pakistan. This was not something that
had been devised merely by Ali and Sarwar, this was part of a much wider scheme
of things.
"Acts of terrorism on an international
scale, directed from abroad using home-grown terrorists, young, radicalised
Muslims prepared to lose their lives in a global act of jihad."
Mr Wright said the component parts of the
bombs "would be designed to resemble soft drinks bottles, batteries and
other seemingly innocuous items that were to be carried on board the aircraft
disguised in hand luggage. They would be assembled on the aircraft and detonated
in flight by suicide bombers prepared to lose their lives.
"Inevitably such an event would have
fatal consequences for the various passengers and crew who happened, quite
by chance, to be flying to North America on the day selected.
"Had they been successful, a civilian
death toll from an act of terrorism would have been on an almost unprecedented
scale." Police rounded up the suspects in August 2006.
Mr Wright continued: "To them the identities
of their victims was an irrelevance by race, colour, religion or creed. What
these men intended to bring about together and with others was a violent and
deadly statement of intent that would have a truly global impact."
Ali was an "influential figure who led
by example", the court heard, who "exalted the virtues of martyrdom
as a modern-day method of warfare".
He was responsible for identifying other young
Muslims who were vulnerable to radicalisation.
Mr Wright said Ali was arrested with a computer
memory stick containing details of flights from Heathrow. Seven specific flights
were highlighted, all leaving from Terminal 3 and due to be in mid-flight
at the same time. The planes were travelling to Montreal and Toronto in Canada
and San Francisco, Washington, Chicago and New York in the US.
All eight men have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy
to murder.
They are: Abdulla Ahmed Ali, aka Ahmed Ali
Khan, 28, of Walthamstow; Assad Sarwar, 28, of High Wycombe; Tanvir Hussain,
27, of Leyton; Ibrahim Savant, 28, of Stoke Newington; Arafat Waheed Khan,
27, of Walthamstow; Waheed Zaman, 24, of Walthamstow; Umar Islam, aka Brian
Young, 30, of Plaistow; and Donald Stewart-Whyte, 22, of High Wycombe. Savant,
Khan, Zaman, Islam and Stewart-Whyte face one additional charge of conspiracy
to murder, which they also deny. The trial is expected to last for 10 months.
