Men convicted over UK bomb plot
From the BBC.
Five men have been convicted of a bomb plot linked to al-Qaeda that could have killed hundreds of people in Britain.
Jurors in the year-long Old Bailey trial heard of plans to target a shopping centre, nightclub and the gas network with a giant fertiliser bomb.
Police smashed the plot in 2004 after MI5 had watched an Islamist extremist network with links across the world.
It has also been revealed some of the plotters met two of the 7 July London suicide bombers. Mohammed Sidique Khan was spotted on four occasions in 2004 with at least one of the fertiliser bomb conspirators. At one point MI5 officers followed Khan back to his home in Leeds but no further action was taken. The link with 7 July was deliberately kept from the Old Bailey jury for fear of prejudicing their deliberations on the fertiliser bomb plot.
The fertiliser bomb plot investigation linked back to senior al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including one who was detained by US forces in Iraq at the weekend.
Omar Khyam, 26, from Crawley, West Sussex, was found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January 2003 and 31 March 2004. Also convicted were Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 23, also of Crawley; Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire; Anthony Garcia, 24, of Barkingside, east London.
Posted on 04/30/2007 7:05 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
.jpg)
%20(2).jpg)
.jpg)
