Liquid bombers "Storm in a teacup ..or serious danger" asks non-racist Ex CPS Chief Judge Calvert-Smith

No-one can or will forget the press furore amd extravagant claims of global catastrophe when Police arrested a total of 25 people in raids across Britain on Aug. 9-10 after a massive clampdown at UK airports as a result of a much hyped "liquid bomb plot" - or what the CIA fronts at the time called the "Lucozade bomb plot". IN daring countrwide swoops police arrested 25 people and charged 17 of them after uncovering an alleged plot to assemble and detonate improvised explosives on board up to 10 U.S.-bound planes. Paul Stephenson, Deputy Commissioner, media darling of the Metropolitan Police told a n exciteable pres scrum, "this was intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

Eleven were charged on Aug. 21 with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism.

They are: Umar Islam, 28; Waheed Zaman, 22; Abdullah Ali, 25; Tanvir Hussain, 25; Arafat Khan, 25; Ibrahim Savant, 25; Assad Sarwar, 26; Adam Khatib, 19; Nabeel Hussain, 22 (now bailed); Mohammed Gulzar, 25, and Mohammed Uddin, 35.

Two others were charged with preparing terrorism: Usman Mohammed Saddique, 24, and Donald Stewart Whyte, 21, who is also charged with three firearms offences.

Ahmed Ali, 24, was charged with failing to disclose information, and a 17-year-old boy, (he cannot be named ), was charged with possessing material that could be used to prepare a terrorist act.

In a pre-trial hearing on Friday 28th October before Judge David Calvert-Smith at London's Central Criminal Court he refused bail to the only woman in the case 24-year-old Cossor Ali. He bailed Nabeel Hussain, 22 and the unnamed 17 year old boy. So far a trial date has been set for early 2008 - but don't hold your breath.

In astonishingly un-judge like language Judge David Calvert-Smith told the prosecution "We must get this trial on."

"Large sections of the population would want to know if this was a storm in a teacup or a serious danger to hundreds of thousands of people."

His words have extra weight as Sir David was Director of Public Prosecutions at the Crown Prosecution Service between 1998 and 2003 and previously Senior Treasury Counsel and Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association . Very famously he is reported as saying In The Sunday Times (23 June 2002), “it is my firm belief that British society is institutionally racist....."

Hugh Mullan a lawyer representing one of the defendents on a conspiracy charge said, little evidence had been received by defence lawyers. "Already things are slipping out of control," he said and claimed that the prosecution has been forced to push back dates agreed at a prior hearing for evidence to be passed to defence lawyers.

For the prosecution Colin Gibbs, acknowledged that the "size, scale and nature" of the case made some delays inevitable, and that the trial date could be pushed back but that Gibbs Ahmed Ali and the unnamed boy could come to trial in May, which would be discussed at a further pre-trial hearing on Dec. 8th 2006.

Gibbs also told the court that more than 500 witness statements had been collected from surveillance operatives, while scientists detailed with analyzing materials seized or found near defendants' homes had yet to provide any firm time frame about when they would be finished.

This post, like the few press reports so far, is based on Associated Press reports - the major media didn't bother to turn up at the appearance in court in Central London of people who planned ..."mass murder on an unimaginable scale."

Meanwhile we all wait with excitement the trial promised in October of the Flour Power bombers of 21/07. See comment from Numeral that this case (R - v - Osman & others)has been adjourned until 11 January 2007 (from scheduled date of Monday 9 October 2006) for the failed 21 July bombings, at the hopelessly overcrowded Woolwich Crown Court, Thamesmead, London.