Transatlantic jet bomb plotters jailed for life

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Transatlantic jet bomb plotters jailed for life
UNITED KINGDOM - 14 SEPTEMBER 2009

LONDON – Three British Muslims were sentenced on Monday to life in jail for plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs in suicide attacks on the scale of September 11, their judge said.

Judge Richard Henriques said the planned "terrorist outrage" was "the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction", as he passed sentence at the top-security Woolwich Crown Court.

Ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum 40-year term.

Co-conspirator Assad Sarwar, 29, must spend a minimum of 36 years in jail, while fellow plotter Tanvir Hussain, 28, must spend at least 32 years behind bars.

The plot, foiled in August 2006, triggered the wide-ranging new rules now in place on carrying liquids aboard commercial aircraft.

The plotters targeted seven flights from London's Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal.

The flights were operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada. They left Heathrow daily within roughly two and a half hours of each other, meaning they would all have been mid-air at the same time, prosecutors said.

Henriques said: "The intention was to perpetrate a terrorist outrage that would stand alongside the events of September 11, 2001 in history.

"I'm satisfied that there is every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded but for the intervention of the police and the security service.

"A massive loss of life would almost certainly have resulted -- and if the detonation was over land, the number of victims would have been even greater still."

He said a trail of emails "establish beyond question the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan", saying the plot was controlled, monitored and funded from there.

The counter-terrorism operation to foil the plot was the biggest ever in the country, costing 35 million pounds.

The evidence included 26,000 exhibits. Police examined 14,000 gigabytes of data, including 15,000 CDs and DVDs.

The trial was peppered with evidence that members of the London-based gang were frequently in communication with figures linked to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

(From left) Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain. Three British Muslims were sentenced to life in jail for plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs in suicide attacks on the scale of September 11.





Source: AFP

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British judge names Pakistan as airline bomb terrorists get life
Mon, Sep 14 09:18 PM

London, Sep 14 (IANS) Naming Pakistan as the country from where they were 'controlled', a British judge Monday sent three men to jail for life for plotting conspiracy to blow up liquid bombs on flights from Britain to North America.

Ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was jailed for at least 40 years, plot 'quartermaster' Assad Sarwar, 29, for at least 36 years and Tanvir Hussain, 28, for at least 32 years.

'You have embraced Islamic extremism and it is that burning extremism that has motivated you throughout this conspiracy and is likely to drive you again,' judge Richard Henriques told the three men at Woolwich Crown Court in London.

E-mails submitted as evidence in the trial had shown that 'the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan', the judge said.

Their aim was a terrorist outrage to 'stand alongside' the 9/11 attacks in history, Henriques said, calling the plot 'the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction'.

The trial heard that at the time of his arrest, Ahmed Ali, of Walthamstow, east London, had identified seven US and Canada-bound flights that were to be attacked within a two-and-a-half-hour period.

'I'm satisfied that there is every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded but for the intervention of the police and the security service,' the judge said.

'Had this conspiracy not been interrupted, a massive loss of life would almost certainly have resulted - and if the detonation was over land, the number of victims would have been even greater still.'

The judge said that the plot had 'reached an advanced stage in its development', with the men in possession of enough chemicals to produce 20 detonators aimed at blowing up flights from Heathrow airport to San Francisco, Washington, New York, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal.

The men's arrests in August 2006 caused chaos to the global aviation industry and led to a strict security check regime - with a 100 ml limit on the amount of liquids passengers can carry - that continues to this day.