Life(?) for terror trio
Three British Muslims have been sentenced to life in jail for plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners with liquid bombs in Al Qaeda-inspired suicide attacks on the scale of September 11. Judge Richard Henriques said the plot was “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction”, as he passed sentence at the Crown Court in London.
“The intention was to perpetrate a terrorist outrage that would stand alongside the events of September 11, 2001, in history,” he said. The plot, foiled in August 2006, triggered the wide-ranging rules now in place on carrying liquids aboard commercial aircraft.
Ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum 40-year term.The plot’s ‘chemist’ Assad Sarwar, 29, must spend a minimum of 36 years behind bars, while fellow plotter Tanvir Hussain, 28, Ali’s right-hand man, must serve at least 32 years.
The counter-terrorism operation to foil the London-based plot was the biggest ever in Britain, costing £35 million ($58 million). Henriques said: “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.”
The plotters targeted seven flights from London’s Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal. The flights, operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada, were to have been simultaneously destroyed in mid-air.
“This was a viable and meticulously planned conspiracy,” Henriques said. The plot was “an act of revenge inspired by extremist Islamic thinking”, aimed at “governments of several allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan”, he added.
The tighter security measures and restrictions on liquids now seen on flights worldwide are “entirely attributable to this conspiracy”. The judge said a trail of emails “establish beyond question” that the plot was controlled, monitored and funded from Pakistan.
http://www.7days.ae/storydetails.php?id=83850&title=Life%20for%20terror%...
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Quite an encouragement, I shud say, for all the wannabe terrorists. You succeed, you make a statement. You dont and you get caught, all you have to face is time as the state's guest at the state's expenditure with the state's machinery and PC brigade falling over themselves to protect ur rights. Just great!
