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March 22, 2006
UK: Islamists Were Ready To Bomb Trains And Nightclubs
A major terror trial has opened yesterday in London's highest criminal court, the Old Bailey, according to news from the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and the Telegraph.
Seven young men, all officially British citizens, and mostly born on these shores, are accused of conspiring to "cause by explosive substances an esplosion or explosions of a nature likely to endanger life." Some of those accused are said to have attended a militant training camp in Kalam, Pakistan, in 2003, where they became proficient in handling and creating explosives.
The group of individuals, who were said to have done their conspiracies between January 1 2003, and March 31, 2004. The jury was told at the start of the trial yesterday that they had been involved with a Pakistani-born citizen of the US, Mohammed Babar, who has already pleaded guilty in New York to various terror-related offences. His testimony will be heard in the trial.
Another individual involved with their operations was a Canadian, Mohammed Momin Khawaja. The prosecutor, David Waters QC said that the accused had played various roles to acquire the necessary ingredients to create bombs. In 2004, at a storage depot in West London, 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate fertiliser had been discovered.
Waters said that one of those on trial had spoken of "pubs, nightclubs or trains" as the group's intended targets. Though the locus operandi of the proposed attacks was to have been Britain, much of the plotting had been been made in Canada and Pakistan.
The prosecutor said that Babar would be given immunity from prosecution when he gives his evidence as he "has an insight as an insider into the events and plans, which an outsider could not have."
The gang's plot had been foiled following months of surveillance by members of MI5, the intelligence agency, as well as Special Branch and anti-terror officers from the UK police.
Those accused are:
Omar Khyam, Anthony Garcia and Nabeel Hussain face additional charges of possessing an "article for terrorism", the 600 kilograms found in West London.
It was claimed that Omar Khayam, Salahuddin Amin and other "brothers" had been working for an al-Qaeda senior commander, Abdul Hadi, the court was told.
Waheed Mahmood's employer, the National Grid Transco, maintains the high voltage electricity grid across England and Wales, and also the high pressure gas system. He had been recorded telling the American citizen Babar that he could not "understand why people were coming all the way to Pakistan or Afghanistan to fight when they should be fighting Jihad in the UK and conducting operations there," David Waters claimed.
Bugs had been placed at the address where Khyam had been staying in Slough, Berkshire, and also at Akbar;s home in Uxbridge in West London, with another listening device concealed within Khyam's car.
Those accused were all arrested on 30 March 2004. The trial continues, and is expected to last for months.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 22, 2006 8:10 AM
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