5 Wannabe "bombers" found guilty - surprise,surprise..the Crown says they had a connection to Al Quaeda
Top, from left: Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam and Shujah Mahmood.
Bottom, from left: Salahuddin Amin, Anthony Garcia and Waheed Mahmood
After one of the largest , longest and costliest (£50Mn) terrorism trials in the UK ,Omar Khyam, 26, from Crawley, West Sussex, was found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January 2003 and 31 March 2004. Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 23, also of Crawley; Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire; Anthony Garcia, 24, of Barkingside, east London have also been found guilty by a jury which spent 27 days considering the case and returning majority verdicts.
Garcia, Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Amin were convicted with Khyam of conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.
Hussain and Shujah Mahmood were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Khyam and Garcia were also found guilty of possession of 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism, but Hussain was cleared.
Khyam was also found guilty of possession aluminium powder for terrorism, but Shujah Mahmood was found not guilty.
The jury found 2 other defendents , Nabeel Hussain and Shujah Mahmood (brother of Omar Khyam) , not guilty.
Now the trial is over the prosecution "reveal" ,or at least claim , without revealing a shred of evidence...
1) That Mohammed Sidique Khan who is alleged to be a ringleader of the 7/7 "suicide" bombers was spotted on 4 (!) occasions in 2004 with at least one of the conspirators. At one point MI5 officers followed Khan back to his home in Leeds but no further action was taken.(!)
2) Khyam is also said to have met Shehzad Tanweer another of the 7/7 "suicide" bombers...presumably to discuss their shared passion for cricket.
3) It is also claimed that through these connections there were contacts back to Pakistan and Al Quaeda.
One wonders why the mastermind Omar Kyam, an agent of Al Quaeda therefore found it necessary to borrow the money for the rental space to store the ammonium nitrate from 21 year old student Nabeel Hussain - who the jury found not guilty.
Evidently these guys were adolescent fantasists motivated by some curious quasi religious/political ideology ,who had malign intent, but were hardly trained terrorists - they represented, compared with the threat of the IRA and UDF over 30 years a negligible risk to public safety. The level of knowledge, expertise and experience of making bombs that was exposed in court suggested they were more of a threat to themselves than the larger public.
We now know that in Northern Ireland, terrorists who stole, mugged, horribly mutilated, killed, bombed, dealt in drugs were in the pay of and under the control of the state by and through it's secret services (FCO) and Police force(Home Office) and Army(MOD / FRU). (See Operation Ballast report and other reports). The current head of MI5 was one of those involved for many years in manipulating, funding, supplying, directing those terrorists, suppressing information, evidence, falsifying records and even ensuring the removal of armed military and police patrols to enable them to commit crimes. Quite where the State and it's employees fit in, in this case, it is not, at this stage possible to discern.
Mohammed Sidique Khan might well fit in as part of the larger jig-saw, but quite how, and why remains a tantalising question.
UPDATE 3pm
Aha! MI5 version of events has appeared on their website with the "evidence" which the BBC reports keep saying were presented in court. Presented in court maybe , but not during a trial when their origin, source, provenance could be tested. There is also statement from the head of MI5 called Jonathan Evans "But the severity of the threat facing our country means expanding counter-terrorist operations at an unprecedented rate just to keep pace." (Why have they not learnt to start sentences /paragraphs with a conjunction ?).
Is the relationship between terrists and the State, Symbiotic, parasitic, incestuous ? Discuss.
1 comment:
From an article back in 2004:
Ansar Khan, whose 18-year-old son Ahmed was among those detained in Britain, has said that his nephew, Omar Khyam, age 22 and also detained Tuesday, traveled to Pakistan in January 2000 after telling his family he was going on a school trip to France.
The family enlisted the help of relatives in Pakistan's military and intelligence services to find Khyam, who was eventually located in a Kashmiri "freedom-fighters" camp and returned to Britain, his uncle said.
The family said that Khyam was attending a computer school at the time of his arrest this week.
Omar Khyam's brother Shujah, age 17, also was detained in Britain Tuesday.
The Khan and Khyam families also said they were approached in recent weeks by a man who identified himself as "Mr. Gould" and said he worked for the British domestic intelligence agency MI5.
After meeting family representatives on several occasions, "Gould" suggested that the young males of the family -- who are now in custody -- should leave Britain.
According to the family, "Gould" said the young men did not represent a threat to national security but had been in contact with people who did represent such a risk.
The family said they had made arrangements for the three -- Ahmed Khan and Omar and Shujah Khyam -- to travel to Pakistan next week.
A spokesman for MI5 denied the claim that one of its officers had contacted the families.
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