Don’t forget about the wives
BBC News, 16 Feb 10: The wife of one of the men who plotted to blow up passenger jets using liquid bombs failed to tell police of his plans, Inner London Crown Court heard. Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was jailed for at least 40 years for plotting to blow up flights from the UK to America. Cossor Ali, 28, kept his suicide terror plan secret, the court was told. . . .
. . . . Mr Whittam read the jury an entry that she made in a notebook in 2005 when she was waiting for Abdulla Ahmed Ali to return from Pakistan. It said: “I am growing more and more attached to the cause for which you are striving for [sic], and the reason for which we are apart. I hope and pray Allah grants your wish and gives you the highest level of Shahada [martyrdom].”
Mr Whittam told the court: “Cossor Ali knew that her husband intended to become a martyr, which, in the context of her relationship with him, her knowledge of his beliefs and the beliefs that he had shared with her, meant that he intended to commit an act of terrorism that involved his own death.” The court heard police found notes which Abdulla Ahmed Ali had made while listening to lectures on jihad, which had his wife’s fingerprints on them. Islamic extremist books were also found in their one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow, east London, as was Mr Ali’s will. . . .
From left to right: Adam Khatib, Nabeel Hussain and Mohammed Shamin Uddin
Times of London, 9 Dec 09: Three friends of the leader of the airline bomb plot were convicted today of terrorist offences connected to the plan to commit mass murder in the skies.
Adam Khatib, 22, was found guilty of conspiring with Abdulla Ahmed Ali to detonate suicide bombs onboard transatlantic airliners flying from London to the United States and Canada.
A jury at Woolwich Crown Court also found Nabeel Hussain, 25, guilty of acts preparatory to terrorism and convicted Mohammed Shamin Uddin, 39, of possessing a document likely to be useful to terrorists.
The three men were convicted at the end of an eight-week trial which was told by the prosecution that they helped Ali and his terror cell as they prepared for their suicide mission.
The plot was thwarted in August 2006 after intensive surveillance by the police and intelligence services, as plans for the attacks were being finalised. After the capture in Pakistan of a key link man between al-Qaeda leaders and Ali’s group in east London, police moved swiftly to arrest the group.
The discovery of their plan to use bottle bombs to bring down aircraft led to a security clampdown which temporarily paralysed global air travel and continues to cause restrictions on carrying liquids on board airliners.
Khatib, a factory worker who was aged 19 at the time of the plot, was a potential suicide bomber who was willing to board one of the seven planes targeted in the plot. He had been with Ali in Pakistan, and police found a tourist map of Lahore bearing Khatib’s fingerprints alongside those of the plot leader and another of the cell ringleaders Assad Sarwar.
Scientific evidence also linked Khatib to the group’s “bomb factory”, a flat in Walthamstow, east London, where the plotters experimented with making liquid bombs and recorded martyrdom videos. . . . . .
. . . . . Hussain was accused of providing logistical and financial support to the bomb cell and police found a martyr’s will among his possessions. The will, written in September 2005, stated: “Why should I worry when I die a Muslim in the manner in which I am to die? I go to my death for the sake of my maker, who if wishes can bless limbs torn away.” . . . .
