UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: London court convicts three men of airliner bombs plot

Record ID: 356120

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: London court convicts three men of airliner bombs plot
  • Date: 7th September 2009
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (FILE AUGUST 2006) (REUTERS) PEOPLE AT CHECK-IN DESK LUGGAGE AT CHECK IN DESK CROWDS AROUND CHECK IN DESKS VARIOUS OF PEOPLE IN LONG QUEUE WAITING TO CLEAR SECURITY CHECKS
  • Embargoed: 22nd September 2009 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVAAHFCL6T4BFCANX5P0MCZMX2WQ
  • Story Text: A London court brings in guilty verdicts on three men accused of plotting to destroy passenger planes using liquid bombs.
    Three Britons were found guilty on Monday (September 7) of plotting to kill thousands of people by blowing up transatlantic airliners bound for North America in mid-flight suicide attacks using bombs made from liquid explosives.
    The plot was hatched in Pakistan just months before the men were arrested in August 2006. Police suspect that al Qaeda planner, Egyptian Abu Obaidah al Masri, who some media reports have cited as the inspiration for the deadly July 7, 2005 suicide bombings in London, was the mastermind.
    The British ringleader was Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, while Assad Sarwar, 29, gathered the bomb ingredients at his home in High Wycombe, a town west of the capital.
    At a previous trial last year, Ali, Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, 28, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder but the jury failed to agree on whether they had intended to blow up planes. On Monday all three were convicted of plotting to down passenger planes and will be sentenced at a later date.
    The jury failed to reach a verdict on Umar Islam, 31, on the airliner plot but he was convicted of conspiracy to murder.
    The previous trial was shown a video Islam made in which he said: "This is revenge for the actions of the USA in the Muslim lands, and their accomplices such as the British and the Jews.
    "This is a warning to the non-believers that if they do not leave our lands there are many more like us and many more like me ready to strike until the law of Allah is established on Earth."
    The suspected al Qaeda plot, just days from being put into operation according to British detectives, had huge worldwide ramifications leading to tight restrictions on the amount of liquids passengers could take on board aircraft.
    The bombers intended to simultaneously destroy at least seven planes carrying over 200 passengers each between London's Heathrow airport and the United States and Canada in August 2006 using explosives hidden in soft drink bottles, prosecutors said.
    U.S. officials have said the carnage would have been as horrific as the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,000 people and had huge repercussions for the aviation industry.
    Four other men were found not guilty of the plot and the jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of an eighth suspect, Britain's Press Association reported.
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