History > 2007 > UK > Terrorism (II)

2.15pm

Seventh terror suspect flees

while on control order

Thursday June 21, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Orr and agencies

A seventh terror suspect has disappeared while on a control order, the Home Office has announced today.

In a written statement to MPs, police minister Tony McNulty said the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, vanished on Monday night. He had been on the control order since November 2005, Mr McNulty said.

"I am today informing parliament of an ongoing police operation to locate a foreign national who is believed to have absconded from his control order on the night of 18 June," said the minister.

"Locating this individual is an operational matter for the police, and an active investigation is under way.

"Control orders are not even our second - or third - best option for dealing with suspected terrorists. But under our existing laws, they are as far as we can go."

The controversial orders impose various restrictions, but suspects are allowed out of their homes for part of the day and are not under full "house arrest".

Last month, Scotland Yard revealed that terror suspects Lamine Adam, 26, his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, had failed to report to police.

Anthony Garcia, 25, a brother of the Adams, was jailed for life in April for his part in the "fertiliser bomb" plot to attack targets in London and across the UK.

Earlier this month, the Home Office was accused by opposition politicians of creating "utter chaos" after it emerged that police were not allowed to take fingerprints or DNA from terrorist suspects on control orders, even though police can store indefinitely the DNA of innocent people who are arrested but never charged, including children.

The loophole came to light more than two years after the government introduced the controversial measures and was only disclosed when home secretary John Reid announced plans to alter the legislation.

Mr McNulty said the latest man to flee was on an electronic tag, a 14-hour-a-day curfew, a requirement to remain within a restricted area and to reside at a specified address. He also had restrictions on his finances and communications.

The minister said: "They are the most stringent obligations we could impose in this individual's case.

"He was previously subject to stricter controls, but these had to be revised in light of last year's Court of Appeal judgment in this and other cases. Unfortunately, within these limits, it is very difficult to prevent determined individuals from absconding.

"I am already appealing to the House of Lords this and several other control order cases, concerning the interpretation of article five of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

"We will consider other options - including derogation - if we have exhausted ways of overturning previous judgments on this issue."

Derogation - or opting out - of the ECHR would allow the Home Office to bring in a tougher form of control order which it has so far held back from introducing.

    Seventh terror suspect flees while on control order, G, 21.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2108306,00.html

1.30pm

Memorial events announced

for victims of July 7

Friday June 8, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Tony Jones, PA

Victims of the July 7 bombings will be remembered at a number of public and private events this year, the Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, said today.

The second anniversary of the attacks, which claimed the lives of 52 people, will see several low-key events staged in the capital following consultations with the bereaved families - but there will be no national minute's silence.

Ms Jowell, London mayor Ken Livingstone and transport commissioner Peter Hendy will mark the deaths by laying flowers at King's Cross station at the time of the attacks.

The Culture Secretary said: "The lives of those caught up in the terrible events of July 7 2005 were changed forever on that day. [The survivors] have shown great courage in starting to rebuild their lives, but two years on, the pain and grief is still unbearably raw. A formal act of remembrance at King's Cross will give the country the chance to remember and pay their respects to the 52 innocent lives lost."

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport will arrange visits for families and survivors to the Underground stations targeted in the attacks - King's Cross, Russell Square, Edgware Road and Aldgate - and to Tavistock Square, the scene of the bus explosion.

It will also organise private gatherings for relatives and survivors who wish to come together and reflect. There will be no national silence and, in line with the wishes of the families, there will be no large public event, the department said. Mr Livingstone said: "London will never forget the terrible events of July 7 2005 and the 52 innocent people who lost their lives.

"In paying our respects, Londoners will continue to demonstrate the tremendous resilience and strength they displayed in the aftermath of the bombings and show the world that this city will not be divided."

Mr Hendy said: "We will never forget those killed and injured on July 7, or the heroic acts of so many staff, passengers and members of the emergency services.

"It is an honour to represent London's transport staff and to pay respects on their behalf."

    Memorial events announced for victims of July 7, G, 8.6.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2098702,00.html

Brown sets out plan

for tough new terror laws


· Judges to get more sentencing power
· PM-in-waiting takes on Labour left

Sunday June 3, 2007
The Observer
Nicholas Watt, political editor

Hardline anti-terror laws are to be proposed by Gordon Brown - including an extension of the 28-day limit on detention without charge - as the Chancellor sends a powerful signal that he will take a harder line on terrorism than Tony Blair.

In an intensification of Brown's plans for Number 10, which follows criticism that he has failed to flesh out his thoughts on terrorism, he will call this week for a series of measures that will infuriate his party's left wing.

They are contrasted with a strong attack on the government's 'macho posturing' on law and order by Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, who is standing for the Labour deputy leadership post. The Chancellor will indicate that he has little time for the Hain approach when he calls for:
· An extension of the 28-day limit on detention without charge. Blair had wanted to extend this to 90 days, but had to limit it to 28 after a Commons revolt.

· Making terrorism an aggravating factor in sentencing, giving judges greater powers to punish terrorism within the framework of the existing criminal law.

· Ending the ban on questioning by police after a terrorist suspect has been charged. This would be subject to judicial oversight to ensure that it is correctly and sparingly used.

· Moving towards allowing evidence from telephone-tapping to be admissible as evidence in court by holding a Privy Council review into whether the law should be changed.

· Increasing the security budget, which has already doubled to more than £2bn a year after 11 September 2001, in the forthcoming spending review when a single security budget will be unveiled.

Brown signalled the changes yesterday when he appeared at a Labour party hustings meeting in Glasgow. The Chancellor said: 'We must be vigilant for the benefit of security in this country. Anti-terror methods must be more sophisticated, with earlier intervention. That is why I support an increase in the length of detention to build up evidence across nations and I support post-charge questioning with an increase in police resources.'

The incoming Prime Minister wants to show there will be no let-up in the fight against terrorism and he is prepared to wrongfoot the Tories as they question some of the government's harsher measures. But Brown will balance his message by indicating that the government needs to do more to assure people that civil liberties are not being trampled on. He believes that the handling of detention without trial is a strong example.

The Chancellor believes it is possible to win support for increasing the 28-day limit if there is stronger judicial oversight of any decisions to extend an individual's detention on a week-by-week basis and an annual report to parliament on the use of the powers. But Brown believes there is a need to extend detention because of the volume of international evidence which accrues in such investigations, most of which can be difficult to obtain from computers.

Brown said: 'Because we believe in the civil liberties of the individual, we must also strengthen accountability to parliament and independent bodies overseeing the police, not subjecting people to arbitary treatment. The world has changed, so we need tougher security. We must recognise there is a group of people we must isolate who are determined to attack. Our security must be strengthened, but we must also strengthen the accountability of our institutions.'

Brown will demonstrate this by giving parliament a greater role in overseeing the intelligence services. He will place the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, which reports to the Prime Minister, on a similar basis as parliamentary select committees, which are acccountable to MPs.

Brown's decision to call for a Privy Council review on the use of telephone-tap evidence shows the Chancellor believes the traditional balancing act - whether it is right to produce in court irrefutable evidence of a terrorist conspiracy when that might expose other intelligence sources - has now come down in favour of presenting the evidence.

    Brown sets out plan for tough new terror laws, O, 3.6.2007, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,2094352,00.html

Leading article:

An attack on civil liberties

that won't make us safer

Published: 28 May 2007
The Independent

Britain has witnessed sustained assaults on its liberties at various times, notably under Charles I. Then, Parliament rose memorably to the challenge. Not much chance of that nowadays, alas, as the Government prepares a fresh assault on civil rights in the form of the new "stop and question" powers it intends to grant the police.

As ever, Tony Blair is artfully presenting the proposals using tried and tested anti-elitist language: those arguing against the new powers are lambasted as the selfish and squeamish few who prize "their" freedoms above the right of 60 million law-abiding "ordinary" people to walk the streets in safety. They are the dreaded liberal snobs who care only about the rights of bombers. It's the old refrain, and one that distorts and paralyses so much public debate in this country.

What looks likely to get lost in this exchange is the fact that the police are about to gain a very significant increase in powers; the principle that citizens have to commit a crime before the police can detain them - a basic cornerstone of this country's notion of liberty - is about to be severely undermined. Once surrendered, these rights will be difficult to claw back. Moreover, the potential victims of this change may not always be the robed and bearded bombers of popular imagination.

Libertarian arguments not the only ones to be made against this change. There is a reasonable suspicion that what we are seeing here is not far-sighted statesmanship but short-termist party politics.

The two sponsors of "stop and question", Mr Blair and John Reid, are both about to leave the stage this month and in a hurry to secure their respective legacies. This offers part of the explanation for the haste with which the proposals have been introduced, with a view to their becoming law in the autumn. Their probable aim appears to be to lock Gordon Brown into following the Blairite security agenda and to embarrass the Tories by putting them on the wrong side of the same agenda.

There could also be great practical problems when it comes to putting these proposals into effect. One reason why the old "sus" laws were rightly abandoned was because they left an entire community feeling stigmatised and singled out. The result was the Brixton riots of 1981. This time it will be young Muslims rather than blacks who will be the unwanted recipients of police attention. The worry is that the outcome - the homogenisation of an entire ethnic or religious community, leading to serious disturbances - will be the same.

This government has got too used to bouncing Parliament and the country into accepting ever more stringent restrictions of civil liberties by uttering the talismanic words "security" and "terror". It feels enabled to do so by opinion polls that appear to show that the public values its safety, loosely conceived, above almost all other considerations, including liberty, no doubt because most people believe it is someone else's liberty rather than their own that is at risk.

Messrs Blair and Reid can thus relax in the certain knowledge that most people will greet whatever they do in the field of civil liberties with a degree of indifference. Whether they are advancing the struggle against terrorism with these instruments is questionable, however. The most potent weapon against Islamist terrorism in this country is the enthusiastic co-operation of the law-abiding majority of Muslims with the forces of law and order. They may well be less inclined to lend the police that co-operation if they feel that the police have been given special powers to harass their community.

    Leading article: An attack on civil liberties that won't make us safer, I, 28.5.2007, http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2588908.ece

Stark choice for Guantánamo detainee:

stay in jail or face torture in home country

· London man cleared for release after four years
· Lawyers demand that he be able to join family in UK

Monday May 28, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd

The government was under pressure last night to allow a London man held in Guantánamo Bay for four years to return to Britain after the US cleared him for release from the notorious prison.

Jamil el-Banna was detained by the US in 2002 after Britain sent the CIA false information about him. He had also failed to accept an MI5 offer to turn informant.

If refused entry to Britain, Mr Banna could be returned to face torture in his native Jordan, from where he fled to Britain in 1994 after alleging ill treatment.

Speaking through his lawyer from Guantánamo, Mr Banna described how he longed to be reunited with his wife and five children, and denied involvement in terrorism. "They should admit the truth - that they have been holding an innocent man for four-and-a-half years. I just want to be home with my family," he said.

Mr Banna's lawyers will launch an emergency court battle within days to seek a guarantee from the government that he will be allowed to return to the UK and be reunited with his family. Today they will mark his 45th birthday but friends and lawyers fear he faces a "nightmare choice" between languishing in Guantánamo or facing torture in Jordan.

Jordan fear

The Blair government, despite its criticism of Guantánamo, has refused to help Mr Banna during his incarceration. At least two other former British resident inmates who were cleared for release have been barred from returning to the UK.

Mr Banna's MP, Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather, said ministers should let him return home to north-west London: "It would be a moral outrage if this government now stood idly by and let him be sent to a country where they know his safety would be at risk."

Mr Banna was granted refugee status by Britain after it was accepted he had been tortured in Jordan.

In 2002 he was seized by the CIA after MI5 wrongly told the Americans that his travelling companion was carrying bomb parts on a business trip to Gambia.

He was taken to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo. He alleges ill treatment in both places and has never been charged with any offence.

This month Mr Banna was seen in Guantánamo by his lawyer, Zachary Katznelson from the group Reprieve. According to Mr Katznelson's transcript of the meeting, seen by the Guardian, Mr Banna said: "The British government has let me stay here for four and a half years. What crime did I commit? Together with the Americans, they have kept me from my children. They have deprived me of the chance to see them grow up, to hold them, to kiss them, to laugh with them, to play with them. There is no way to turn back time, to give me back those moments."

During the visit, Mr Banna was allowed to watch a home video of his children, including his first sighting of his four-year-old daughter Maryam. He said: "If there is any justice and fairness in Britain, the British government should tell the Americans immediately: 'You made a mistake; it is time to get him [Jamil] out of there.' Just tell me you are sorry, that you made a mistake. If they apologised, I would forgive them."

Mr Banna came to the attention of MI5 because he knew Abu Qatada, the cleric accused of being al-Qaida's spiritual leader in Europe. Days before the trip to Gambia an MI5 agent went to Mr Banna's home in an attempt to recruit him. He is also wanted in Spain, which has expressed an interest in extraditing him.

His friend, Bisher al-Rawi, was also seized by the US on the trip to Gambia and imprisoned in Guantánamo for four years. He was released in March after it emerged he had helped MI5 monitor Abu Qatada.

Speaking from Guantánamo, while shackled to the floor, Mr Banna said: "I have always told the truth. I have no information about terrorism. I've said since the very first day: put me on trial anywhere at any time. I will gladly stand up and tell my story. And I know that a fair court would set me free. But there is no chance of that here in Guantánamo. There is no justice here." Mr Banna said his diabetes is not being treated and his sight is deteriorating.

Mr Katznelson said: "Now he's been cleared for release, he faces the start of a new nightmare. Each time I see him he's more depressed. He is increasingly despondent about being sent to Jordan."

During the visit Mr Banna also said that letters from his children were taking up to 16 months to reach him.

Ms Teather, who has fought for Mr Banna's release, said: "Hearing that Jamil has been cleared for release should be a moment of rejoicing for his family. But instead it seems they are about to be torn apart. Jamil was arrested because of false information passed by British security services, and he has been left in Guantánamo to rot because the British government refuses to act. Now he has finally been cleared for release, the only thing that stands between this father and his family is permission from the government for him to come home."

Repugnant

Solicitor Irène Nembhard said the home secretary would be taken to court to give a guarantee that he would be allowed entry into Britain: "Since the British government had a role in his detention, to refuse him re-entry would be repugnant.

"It would be unlawful as his children are British nationals with a right to family life under article eight [of the European Convention on Human Rights]."

The government has maintained a position that it has no obligation to help British residents held by the US in Guantánamo.

A spokesman for the Pentagon refused to discuss the case and no date has been set for Mr Banna's release.

    Stark choice for Guantánamo detainee: stay in jail or face torture in home country, G, 28.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2089623,00.html

2pm

Race hate preacher Faisal deported

Friday May 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
By Fred Attewill and agencies

An Islamic cleric who had a "strong" influence on one of the July 7 suicide bombers was deported today after serving a jail sentence for inciting racial hatred.

Abdullah al-Faisal, the government said, also preached his message of hate to failed shoe bomber Richard Reid and jailed September 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui.

The Jamaican convert to Islam will be permanently excluded from the UK, although the government can do nothing to stop him broadcasting to British Muslims via the internet.

Faisal, who the government said had influenced Jermaine Lindsay - responsible for the blast that killed 26 people at King's Cross tube station, encouraged Muslims to attend training camps so they could wage jihad on the west.

He was jailed in February 2003 for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, after being convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.

Hundreds of Muslims attended his lectures in mosques across Britain, including Birmingham, London and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.

Home secretary John Reid welcomed his deportation back to Jamaica.

He said: "I am pleased Abdullah al-Faisal has been removed and excluded from the UK.

"We are committed to protecting the public and have made it clear that foreign nationals who abuse our hospitality and break our laws can expect to be deported after they have served a prison sentence.

"We will not tolerate those who seek to spread hate and fear in our communities."

Faisal, Jamaican by birth but living in Stratford, east London, was put on a plane to Kingston after reaching his parole date.

Faisal's trial in 2003 heard recordings of him praising Osama bin Laden

"You have to learn how to shoot and fly planes and drive tanks," Faisal told those who attended his lectures.

"Jews," Faisal said, "should be killed ... as by Hitler."

He encouraged the use of chemical weapons to "exterminate non-believers" and exhorted Muslim women to buy toy guns for their children to train them for jihad.

He also suggested that nuclear power stations could be fuelled with the bodies of Hindus, slaughtered for their "oppression" of Muslims in Kashmir.

Videos of his lectures have been found circulating in Muslim circles in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where last August police concentrated their inquiries into the alleged bomb plot involving airliners.

Faisal's influence extended to the US, where followers set up groups endorsing jihad and marketing tapes.

    Race hate preacher Faisal deported, G, 25.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2088332,00.html

Cousin of 7/7 leader: I'm not the fifth bomber

Suspected of involvement in the London tube attacks,
Imran Motala talks of his seven days in police cells

Saturday May 19, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain


A relative of Mohammad Sidique Khan has described how police suspect him of being a so-called "fifth bomber" who lost his nerve shortly before the July 7 suicide attacks.

In the first interview to be given by a member of Sidique Khan's family, Imran Motala described how police repeatedly accused him of being the fifth man whose rucksack bomb was later found in the boot of a car abandoned by the gang.

Mr Motala denies having anything to do with the attacks, and was released without charge last week after being kept under covert surveillance for a year, then arrested and questioned for seven days.

He accepts that police were right to question him after telephone records showed that he had a series of conversations with Sidique Khan in the weeks before the attacks, but is puzzled that this was not done earlier. "If I had been the 'fifth bomber', I could have set off an explosion in August 2005," he says.

Mr Motala is a trained artist, an enthusiastic break dancer, and he likes a drink. When detectives from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command came to arrest him, shortly after dawn, they found him in his girlfriend's room at a University of Birmingham halls of residence.

"But the police told me they thought my western lifestyle was just a cover," he says. "Once I was at Paddington Green police station, they said: 'It's all there in the training manual for jihad.'"

Mr Motala, 22, was arrested 10 days ago on suspicion of "commissioning, preparing or instigating acts of terrorism", along with his cousin Hasina Patel, the widow of Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the July 7 suicide bombers, and her brother Arshad. All three were released without charge after seven days. Another man remains in custody.

Mr Motala insists that his only real crime is that Sidique Khan married into his family. The police and the security service see matters very differently. At Paddington Green in west London it was repeatedly put to him that he not only aided the bombers but that he was destined to have been one himself.

"They didn't just think I had with-held information about the bombings, they thought I was involved, that I was to have been the fifth bomber," he said. "They asked me: 'Are you the fifth bomber? Were you meant to be the fifth bomber? Did you bottle out in the end?'"

Mr Motala says police also suspect he was the unidentified male who bought the rucksacks which contained the bombs from a Millets store in Leeds six days before the bombings.

While in custody he learned that he had been under surveillance for a year: he and members of his family had been followed, all of his previous employers had been interviewed, and he strongly suspects that his family home in the Lozells area of Birmingham was bugged when West Midlands police raided the property last year, ostensibly looking for firearms. Despite the lengthy surveillance operation, no evidence was found that would justify charges against him.

Samples

After being arrested, cautioned and handcuffed, Mr Motala was driven to Paddington Green. Inside the police station officers took a hair sample and footprints, and a swab from inside his cheek. The fingerprinting process was so detailed that it took about two hours. He did not ask for a solicitor on the first day because, he says, "I thought I was going to be leaving the same day".

He was questioned about his contacts with Sidique Khan, and in particular about a flurry of telephone contacts early in May 2005. He told detectives that most of the conversations were about a trip he was planning to Dewsbury, where Sidique Khan lived, after another cousin living there gave birth. While there, he said, he went out night-clubbing, stayed out all night, and Sidique Khan rang his mobile telephone repeatedly to enquire after him.

The detectives also asked him about the 7/7 attacks. "I said it was a cowardly act, that it did nobody any good, that it ruined many people's lives. I said that my way of fighting against the Iraq war was to join the march which was held in London. Suddenly there were a million and one questions about the war and why I opposed it." He says he was also repeatedly asked whether he went jogging or went to gyms, and whether he used to exercise with Sidique Khan. "They wanted to know if I was training for jihad. But I don't go to gyms."

He was taken to a small, windowless cell, empty but for a concrete bed, plastic mattress, bedding and a steel lavatory bolted to the wall. The showers, he says, were always freezing and exercise was allowed in a small courtyard, entirely enclosed, always handcuffed and watched by four guards. Before long Mr Motala was being given sleeping pills each night, and examined by a doctor each morning before the police interviews began.

He first discovered that his two cousins had also been arrested on the second day of their detention when all three were taken into a room, lined with police, which was linked by video to a magistrates court. The police applied successfully for permission to hold all three for up to seven days. None of the cousins exchanged a word.

Mr Motala says he was shown an eight- or nine-page transcript of a bugged conversation between Sidique Khan and Omar Khyam, the leader of a gang plotting a series of fertiliser bomb attacks, who was jailed for life last month. The pair were talking about a young man who was "being tested" but who wasn't yet ready to wage violent jihad. The detectives put it to him that he was the young man. "I think that would be inconceivable," he says.

When he was released last Tuesday, Mr Motala discovered his family's home had been raided at the time he was arrested. While his parents, brother and a sister were being driven by police to a hotel, other officers were looking under floorboards, removing photographs, documents, electrical equipment and even two Hoovers. His father, Salem, says the house "doesn't feel the same any more - doesn't feel like home".

"It is legitimate to ask me questions about Mohammad Sidique Khan," he says. "I can see why they would want to talk to me about telephone contacts, that's fair enough. But a whole year's worth of surveillance has found nothing, and then they brought me in like that. All they had was telephone traffic with a relative. It makes no sense. And why wait so long to talk to me?"

Meanwhile, he says his experience has pushed him closer to Islam. "Praying is all I could do in my cell. I did it to kill time. And I was asking God to get me out."

    Cousin of 7/7 leader: I'm not the fifth bomber, G, 19.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2083416,00.html

12.15pm update

Police release July 7 bomber's widow

Wednesday May 16, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Lee Glendinning and Vikram Dodd

Three people arrested in connection with the July 7 London bombings, including the widow of the attack ringleader, Mohammad Sidique Khan, have been released without charge.

Hasina Patel, 29, Khan's widow, was arrested last Wednesday at her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Ms Patel, her brother Arshad Patel, 30, and Imran Motala, 22, were released last night.

They had been held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. A fourth man, Khalid Khaliq, 34, from Beeston, Leeds, remains in custody.

During the anti-terror raids, properties in Dewsbury, Batley, Beeston in south Leeds and Birmingham were searched and inspected by forensic officers.

Scotland Yard said in a statement: "In all operations some people may be released early without charge while others may remain in custody for further investigation. This is not unusual and is to be expected in large and complex criminal investigations."

The decision to arrest Ms Patel was condemned by Suresh Grover, who has been advising her since September 2005.

"I think this was a totally stage-managed arrest of people whose only crime is to be associated with the people responsible for the July 7th bombings," Mr Grover said last night.

"There was no evidence against them, this will cause damage to the relations between the police and Muslim communities."

Ms Patel was interviewed three times by police after her husband led the suicide bombers who attacked three tube trains and a bus.

Mr Grover said Ms Patel and Khan were estranged in the months leading up to the bombings and last saw each other for an hour on July 5 2005.

Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19, attacked the London transport system on July 7 2005, killing 52 people.

The ongoing inquiry is attempting to determine who knew of the bomb plot or provided support or shelter to the four suicide bombers.

Last month Mohammed Shakil, 30, Sadeer Saleem, 26, and Waheed Ali, 23, from Beeston, became the first people to appear in court charged with conspiring with the bombers.

    Police release July 7 bomber's widow, G, 16.5.2007, http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,,2069096,00.html

4.30pm

Deportation ruling deals blow to anti-terror policy

Monday May 14, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Matt Weaver and agencies

The government's anti-terror policy was dealt another blow today after judges ruled against deporting a man cleared of plotting to launch a poison attack on London.

Mr Justice Mitting, chairman of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) panel in central London, said Algerian Mouloud Sihali was not a risk to national security.

But he added: "His immigration status is still uncertain."

Mr Sihali, 30, was acquitted of charges in the Ricin plot trial in April 2005, which alleged that a terror cell planned to smear the toxin on car door handles in Holloway Road, north London.

The cases of three other Algerians - identified only as U, W and Z - were dismissed. The commission ruled that the trio, one of whom was also acquitted in the Ricin plot, could be deported. All three are set to appeal against the decision and U is set to launch his Court of Appeal hearing next month.

Bail conditions on Mr Sihali, who had been tagged and given an exclusion zone, were relaxed. He must now live at an agreed address and report once a week to immigration officials.

The home secretary has 10 days to appeal and press on with his bid to send him back to Algeria.

Mr Sihali waved his right to anonymity by giving a newspaper interview when he expressed concerns about his safety if deported.

In his newspaper interview in February 2006, Mr Sihali said: "I don't know what will happen to me if I go back to Algeria. Will I be prosecuted? Will I be persecuted? That's what I fear."

He claimed he fled his homeland after refusing to perform national service, arriving in Britain in 1997.

At the time of the ricin trial, Mr Sihali admitted two counts of possessing false passports and received 15 months' imprisonment. He was released on his acquittal due to time spent on remand.

He was rearrested in September 2005 after the then home secretary signed a "no torture" agreement with Algeria.

The UK government had sought the agreement, set out in a so-called memorandum of understanding (MoU) specifically so that it could deport a number of terror suspects, including the four in court today, without breaching international human rights laws.

Those laws prevent anyone being deported to a country where they may face abuse.

The government claims Z is a leading UK-based member of the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA.

He is said to have spent two years in hiding when his arrest under the 2001 emergency internment powers seemed to be imminent, but his lawyers claim he was living openly during that period.

Z, a father of two, arrived in Britain in 1991 and later claimed asylum.

W is thought to be 35 and claims to have entered the UK illegally in 1999, applying for asylum shortly afterwards.

He was acquitted as part of the second group of defendants to face charges in connection with the ricin plot.

W claims he fled his homeland after deserting the Algerian Army in the middle of a fight against terrorists. Siac has reported that W has psychiatric problems including delusional disorders.

In all, there are thought to be 15 Algerian terror suspects facing deportation. Two, known as I and V, left Britain voluntarily last June. V had also been acquitted of involvement in the ricin plot.

Last August, an Algerian known as Y - who was also cleared of involvement in the ricin plot - lost his appeal against deportation to his homeland when Siac ruled the political situation there was "changing and stabilising".

Two years ago, three of the jurors who acquitted the Algerians in the ricin plot trial told the Guardian that they were angry at the prospect that they would be deported.

They said their not guilty verdicts appear to have been ignored and feared the men could face torture in Algeria.

Today's ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions dealing with terror suspects.

In February, the Home Office won a landmark ruling to deport Abu Qatada to Jordan on the back of a MoU.

Last month two Libyan suspects won their appeal against deportation because they risked being tortured, even though Libya was also a signatory to the MoU.

    Deportation ruling deals blow to anti-terror policy, G, 14.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2079457,00.html

1pm

Timeline: The July 7 investigation

James Sturcke outlines the Met's inquiry into the London terror bombings

Wednesday May 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke

Twenty months passed between the July 2005 London bombings and the first significant arrests in connection with the attacks as police sifted through a "complicated jigsaw with thousands of pieces".

Last month, Waheed Ali, 23, Sadeer Saleem, 26, and Mohammed Shakil, 30, all originally from Beeston, near Leeds, came before an Old Bailey judge charged with conspiring with the four Islamist terrorists to cause explosions likely to endanger life or cause serious injury.

They are alleged to have been involved in a reconnaissance mission carried out by the four bombers in London 10 days before they blew themselves up on the transport system killing another 52 people.

They are also alleged to have conspired with the suicide bombers to plan the July 7 attacks and target London's tourist attractions.

The alleged reconnaissance mission on June 28 was caught on CCTV cameras.

The footage was discovered by police in the days after Shehzad Tanweer, Mohammed Siddique Khan, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay detonated their rucksack bombs on three tube trains and a bus on July 7 2005.

Mr Shakil, a father of three, and Mr Ali, who was previously known as Shipon Ullah, were arrested on March 22 as they were about to board a flight from Manchester to Pakistan. Mr Saleem was arrested in Beeston later the same day.

During the months between the bombings and the first charges being brought, police came under pressure to reveal how their investigation into the attacks was proceeding.

Last July, in the run-up to the first anniversary of the killings, the head of the Met's counter-terrorism command, Peter Clarke, said detectives were still "assessing, analysing and acting on" the "vast amount" of information police had gathered.

Admitting that more needed to be done, Mr Clarke said police had taken 13,353 witness statements and there were over 29,500 exhibits and more than 6,000 hours of CCTV footage to sift through.

"I would like to reassure the victims, relatives and friends of those who died and suffered in the attacks that this investigation has an unwavering focus on finding the truth as to what lay behind the attacks," he said.

Mr Clarke added the police investigation was taking place both in the UK and abroad.

"We need to know who else, apart from the bombers, knew what they were planning. Did anyone encourage them? Did anyone help them with money, accommodation or expertise in bomb-making?"

Pressure on the police and the security services intensified last week after it was revealed that two of the July 7 bombers had been filmed by intelligence officers meeting men subsequently convicted of plotting a series of explosions in and around London.

Khan and Tanweer were filmed at Toddington services on the M1 in 2004 and some conversations were recorded. MI5 later conceded that one recording may have referred to a plan to join militia fighting in Pakistan. However, pressure on resources meant they were not considered priority targets.

Speaking again last month, after the first July 7 detentions, Mr Clarke warned there were likely to be more arrests. He alleged that within the community of Beeston, where three of the four bombers had lived, people with information were being actively discouraged from coming forward to the police.

"I only wish that I could share with you the extent of what we have discovered, but I cannot," he said. "That must wait for the trial of those who have been charged, or any others who may be charged in future.

"The detail of the evidence must wait, but it is probably fair to describe it as a complicated jigsaw with thousands of pieces. We now have enough of the pieces in the right place for us to see the picture, but it is far from complete."

More than 30 people may have been involved in the July 7 plot, police believe, ranging from peripheral figures who provided support and accommodation to those more directly implicated. Mr Clarke reinforced the suggestion that there were more people at large.

"The search is not over. I firmly believe that there are other people who have knowledge of what lay behind the attacks in July 2005 - knowledge they have not shared with us. In fact, I don't believe it - I know it for a fact. For that reason, the investigation continues."

    Timeline: The July 7 investigation, G, 9.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,,2075754,00.html

11.45am update

July 7 bomber's widow held in anti-terror raid

Wednesday May 9, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke and agencies

The widow of the July 7 suicide bomber, Mohammed Sidique Khan, was among four people arrested in a series of anti-terror raids today.

Hasina Patel, 29, was arrested in a two-storey mid-terrace house on Dale Street, Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury, police sources said.

It is understood that among the three males arrested was a man from Tempest Road in Leeds - the same street where the July 7 Aldgate bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, lived.

Another man, aged 30, was also arrested in West Yorkshire along with a 22-year-old man in Birmingham.

Police were seen leaving and entering the Dale Street property, where the curtains were closed and a red Vauxhall was parked in the driveway.

Police officers were also seen in unmarked cars outside the three-bedroom housing association house.

The property was one of five houses in West Yorkshire - two in Dewsbury, two in Beeston and one in Batley - and two flats in Birmingham cordoned off and searched by police.

Unarmed officers carried out the raids, which were connected to the July 7 2005 London bombings, in which 52 people were killed.

The arrests took place just after 7am today and the four people detained were taken to a central London police station to be interviewed by anti-terror officers.

They are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The arrests were made by the Met's counter-terrorism command and counter-terrorism units from the West Yorkshire and West Midlands forces.

"Since July 7 2005, when 52 people were murdered, detectives have continued to pursue many lines of inquiry both here in the UK and overseas," the Met said. "This remains a painstaking investigation with a substantial amount of information being analysed and investigated.

"As we have said previously, we are determined to follow the evidence wherever it takes us to identify any other person who may have been involved, in any way, in the terrorist attacks."

A Met spokesman reissued an appeal for information about how the bombers - Khan, Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussein - were motivated and financed.

"We need to know who else, apart from the bombers, knew what they were planning. Did anyone encourage them? Did anyone help them with money or accommodation?" the spokesman said.

West Yorkshire police said neighbourhood officers were meeting local people to keep them updated and informed about activity in their areas and to reassure the wider community.

"We would like to thank people for their understanding and support at this time and would ask that it continues," the force said in a statement. "Although we are legally limited in how much we can say, we will share as much information as we can with those living in the vicinity and with the wider community.

"As usual, local neighbourhood policing teams are on patrol in the areas and we would ask anyone with concerns to speak directly to them."

Officers said they did not believe any of the premises being searched in West Yorkshire contained anything that could be a threat to the local community.

In Beeston, police officers were patrolling the streets. On Tempest Road, close to Tanweer's family home, an officer guarded the front door of an address while another stood guard in the back garden.

West Midlands police said the 22-year-old man was arrested at 7.25am in the Selly Oak area of Birmingham and a full forensic search was being conducted at a house in the Handsworth area of the city.

In the Selly Oak area of Birmingham, police stood guard at a student hall of residence believed to be the location of one of the raids.

A police lorry took away a silver Peugeot 307 from the Victoria Hall block of flats on Grange Road.

"A police presence will be visible at this location for a number of days," a statement said. Two other addresses were being searched in Selly Oak.

Last month, the first three people to be charged in connection with the London attacks appeared via video link before a judge at the Old Bailey. Mohammed Shakil, 30, Sadeer Saleem, 26, and Waheed Ali, 23, of Beeston, Leeds, are accused of conspiring with the four bombers to cause explosions.

There has been criticism of both the police and the security services over their handling of the July 7 attacks.

Last week, it emerged that two of the bombers, Khan and Tanweer, had been filmed by British security officials more than a year before the July 7 bombings on three London tube trains and a London bus.

They were filmed meeting two men at a service station on the M1. The details emerged after the conviction of five men for planning a separate attack. Two of the London bombers were acquaintances of the convicted plotters.

    July 7 bomber's widow held in anti-terror raid, G, 9.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2075496,00.html

7/7 leader: more evidence reveals what police knew

· Bomber was tracked before blasts
· Blair again rules out public inquiry

Thursday May 3, 2007
Guardian
Vikram Dodd, Ian Cobain and Helen Carter

Police were investigating the ringleader of the July 7 bombings just five months before he led the suicide attacks on London that killed 52 people, the Guardian has learned.

In what appears to have been a renewed investigation, a witness gave detectives in January 2005 part of Mohammad Sidique Khan's name, his mobile telephone number and the name and the address of his mother-in-law. The revelation suggests Khan was being investigated much nearer to the London bombings than has been officially admitted.

Details of how Khan and a second bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, came repeatedly under surveillance in 2004 were disclosed this week after five of their associates were jailed for life for planning attacks around south-east England.

The discovery that Khan was reinvestigated the following year appears to contradict claims from MI5 that inquiries about him came to an end in 2004 after it was decided that other terrorism suspects warranted more urgent investigation. It is also likely to lead to scrutiny of MI5's assertion that its officers, who had followed, photographed and secretly recorded Khan, and made other inquiries about him, did not know who he was.

The Guardian has learned that on January 27 2005, police took a statement from the manager of a garage in Leeds which had loaned Khan a courtesy car while his vehicle was being repaired. MI5 had followed Khan and Tanweer as they drove the courtesy car across London in March the previous year. The garage manager told police that the car had been loaned to a "Mr S Khan" who gave his mobile telephone number and an address in Gregory Street, Batley, West Yorkshire.

Khan, the police were told, had asked for his repaired car to be delivered to another address, in nearby Dewsbury, which is now known to be his mother-in-law's home. Almost a year earlier, MI5 officers had followed Khan to the same address after watching him meet a number of suspected terrorists.

That was not the end of police interest in Khan in 2005. On the afternoon of February 3 an officer from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch carried out inquiries with the company which had insured a car in which Khan was seen driving almost a year earlier. He discovered that Khan had insured a five-door silver Honda Accord saloon, in his own name. Inquiries also showed that the car was registered in the name of Khan's mother-in-law.

Nothing about these inquiries appeared in the report by parliament's intelligence and security committee after it investigated the July 7 attacks. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "It is becoming more and more clear that the story presented to the public and parliament is at odds with the facts."

Scotland Yard described the 2005 inquiries as "routine", while security sources said they were related to the fertiliser bomb plot.

In the Commons yesterday, Tony Blair said an independent inquiry would "undermine support" for the security service. David Cameron said only a full inquiry would "get to the truth".

There was more confusion yesterday over evidence that Shehzad Tanweer was surfing the internet for bomb-making tips in June 2005, two weeks before the suicide attacks. According to a document which prosecution lawyers in the fertiliser bomb plot case disclosed to the defence before the trial began, Tanweer was heard to be discussing bombings and using the internet to make such a bomb.

The document says: "Tanweer told the same person he had entered Afghanistan and met people from around the world who had got into his head." MI5 says this information is "false". But the Crown Prosecution Service told the Guardian the information was passed to it by Scotland Yard. The Yard does not deny this but says its officers in the case had "no recollection" of the information.

    7/7 leader: more evidence reveals what police knew, G, 3.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2071226,00.html

A clear and present danger

Tuesday May 1, 2007
The Guardian
Leader

The story of Operation Crevice, which finally burst into the light yesterday, will come as a surprise to almost everyone outside the narrow circle of politicians and security professionals who - together with those present in court - were aware that one of the most remarkable trials in British criminal history had been underway for the last 13 months. Restrictive limits on reporting meant that there could be no discussion of the most significant evidence, which yesterday helped bring about the conviction of five of the seven defendants for plotting to blow up a major (but unidentified) public target with maximum loss of life. Nor could the security services and the government be challenged over the fact that two of the men who later went on to carry out the July 7 attacks in London were not tracked after they appeared in the Crevice investigation. The trial has formed a ghostly backdrop to the national response to terrorism: offering evidence (for those who need it after July 7) that official warnings about a serious terror threat are based on fact, not hysteria (although at times that can look like a factor). But until yesterday's convictions, it was not something that could be made public.

Almost everything about the trial and the security operation which preceded it has been extraordinary; its length, its cost and even the record 27 days that the jury took to reach its verdict. The court heard evidence from 105 prosecution witnesses, and listened to chilling surveillance recordings of the defendants gloating over the cruelties they planned to inflict on visitors to the Bluewater shopping centre and the Ministry of Sound nightclub. There is something almost pathetic about the sound of the young British voices boasting about their intentions on the tapes released yesterday - and yet what they intended was to kill as many people as possible in an attack that could have been much bigger than the one on July 7 2005. Whatever else is said about the trial and the investigation preceding it, the security services succeeded in protecting the country and should be thanked for that.

Yet there was also a terrible failure. Among the people tracked (but not identified) during the investigation were two of the perpetrators of July 7, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer. After the attacks, the public was told (not least by the home secretary of the time, Charles Clarke) that they had come out of the blue. This was not the case. With better resources, or better judgment, or simply better luck, MI5 might have managed to stop the London bombers. One response is a degree of relief. It would, surely, have been more frightening still to discover that the London bombers had reached their target without at any point encountering the security system that was supposed to stop them. That offers no comfort to those who lost relatives and who now live with the knowledge that MI5 had some awareness of these characters but decided not to pursue them. It proved a bad mistake. But in the subtle and challenging world of counter-terrorism, errors will go on being made.

Yesterday both Downing Street and the home secretary brushed aside discussion of the links between Operation Crevice and July 7. Both opposition parties called for an inquiry. What sort of inquiry, though, and what might it hope to achieve? Big changes, not least the splitting of the Home Office and the near-doubling of security service numbers, are already underway. An inquiry might rake over old failings, not current ones. It could add to the pressures on those policing terrorism. Carried out in private, it might not even do much to reassure the public. There is no doubt that scrutiny of intelligence work is lacking: parliament's intelligence and security committee is too tame, as its report on the July 7 bombings suggests. A one-off inquiry into an investigation that succeeded much more than it failed is not the way to make it better.

    A clear and present danger, G, 1.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2069164,00.html

The phone call that asked: how do you make a bomb?

Hidden bugs, secret searches and 'Amanda' the undercover detective on self-store depot reception

Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor

Roots of the conspiracy to mount a bomb attack in the UK can be traced to long before the war in Iraq. Several of the plotters had come together in 2001, some had discussed "hitting" British targets before the invasion, and at least one had terrorist training before 9/11.

The war, however, clearly provided the impetus. Mohammed Junaid Babar, an American member of the cell who turned supergrass, said the plotters "believed the UK should be hit because of its support of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq", and because at that time "nothing had ever happened in the UK". The gang, he added, wanted to hit British "pubs, trains and nightclubs ... because British soldiers are killing Muslims".

Babar said senior al-Qaida figures wanted the gang to carry out simultaneous attacks. One possibility suggested by Waheed Mahmood was "a little explosion at Bluewater - tomorrow if you want", while another was to target the 4,200-mile network of underground high-pressure gas pipelines. Some gang members favoured the Ministry of Sound nightclub in south London. One of the plotters, Jawad Akbar, was heard to say: "No one can even turn around and say 'oh they were innocent', those slags dancing around."

The five men convicted at the Old Bailey, and two gang members detained in New York and Ottawa, were a small number of the floating cast of young Muslim extremists who came under surveillance by the joint police and security service investigation known as Operation Crevice. Hundreds of people were watched.

About 18 were suspected of being involved in the plot, though not all were prosecuted. A further 55 came under investigation once the core group were arrested. Some of the ambitions of the would-be killers appear fanciful. There was the belief that a jihadist associate in Belgium had struck a deal to purchase a "radioisotope bomb" from the Russian mafia, and a plan to sell poisoned burgers from vans outside football grounds.

But there was nothing far-fetched about the 600kg of ammonium nitrate recovered from a west London storage unit rented by the gang; nor about the half-built remote-controlled detonator found at the home of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, the Canadian technician who was a cell member. Nor was there anything imaginary about the 12-page list of British synagogues recovered from the house in Crawley, West Sussex, where Omar Khyam, one of the gang's leaders, lived with his younger brother Shujah Mahmood, who was acquitted yesterday.

Operation Crevice began as an MI5 investigation into a suspect living in Luton, Bedfordshire, called Mohammed Quayyum Khan. The court heard that Quayyum - usually known as Q - took orders from a senior al-Qaida figure, Abdul Hadi. In February 2004, MI5 intercepted a phone conversation between two of Q's young associates: Omar Khyam, in Crawley, was talking to Salahuddin Amin, in Pakistan, about the quantities of different ingredients needed to construct a fertiliser bomb.

Scotland Yard was brought in to help keep the suspects under surveillance. Eventually, police and MI5 intercepted 97 phone lines, secretly searched property on 12 occasions, compiled 3,500 hours of surveillance tapes from bugs hidden in homes and cars, and concealed video cameras outside a mosque in Langley Green, Crawley, and at several internet cafes.

Several people under surveillance had fallen under the influence of al-Muhajiroun, the now-outlawed Islamist group formed by Omar Bakri Mohammed. Babar, an American of Pakistani origin, had been al-Muhajiroun's organiser in Queens, New York.

Several gang members also met another al-Qaida suspect, named in court as Abu Munthir, who divided his time between Luton and Pakistan. Abu Munthir was arrested in Pakistan in 2004, but Q remains at liberty in the UK. The jury was told he has never been arrested or questioned.

Abdul Hadi is thought to be Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who is being interrogated at Guantánamo Bay. According to the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, based at MI5 headquarters, al-Iraqi has been calling for a large-scale attack in the UK before Tony Blair stands down as prime minister.

Kyham went to Pakistan in the summer of 2003, hoping to fight in Afghanistan. The trial heard that Abu Munthir told him that if he was really serious, he should "do something" in Britain. The group assumed they would come under surveillance in Pakistan, and posed as tourists, visiting lakes and glaciers. They shaved off their beards, wore western clothing and regularly changed their mobile phones.

They explored ways of smuggling detonators overland to the UK, via a ferry from Belgium. They also employed an internet-age variant on the dead-letter drop by opening an email account - nicolechic_shara@yahoo.com - and sharing the password. Messages could be written, saved as drafts, and then retrieved by any member of the cell, anywhere in the world, without being fully transmitted.

In one message, Khyam asks Amin to check the quantities of chemicals needed for a fertiliser bomb. In another, he tells Khawaja in Canada: "k bro don't worry we'll be there to pick u up, about the device its better we leave it wil explain later we will discuss it and maybe show pics at most, see ya soon nigga; we'll talk about the chicks when you get here nigga."

By the end of the summer in 2003, the gang members had separated and returned to their homes in Ottawa, New York and England. Amin remained in Pakistan, where he had settled two years earlier.

In November that year, a man calling himself John Lewis asked Bodle Brothers, an agricultural merchants in Burgess Hill in West Sussex, to supply ammonium nitrate fertiliser. Lewis, actually Rahman Adam aka Anthony Garcia, bought 600kg, which he said was for his allotment.

Khyam had been under surveillance for some time by the police and security service. Bugs were planted in his home and car, and another in Jawad Akbar's home. But the police and MI5 were unaware that ammonium nitrate had been bought. The gang was storing it in a £207-a-month lock-up at the Access Self Storage depot in Hanwell in west London. Staff there became suspicious and called the police. A tiny CCTV camera was installed inside the unit hired by the gang, the fertiliser was switched for a harmless substance and an undercover detective, calling herself Amanda, posed as a receptionist when gang members visited.

Police and MI5 compiled 3,500 hours of audio surveillance tapes. Khawaja was watched as he flew into Heathrow, drove with the gang to an internet cafe and showed them an image of the initiator he had decided was needed to trigger the bomb - a device he called a "hifidigimonster".

Police heard some of the conspirators refer to 12 CDs stolen by Waheed Mahmood, a gas mechanic who had been working at National Grid Transco. The discs gave locations of some of the high-pressure gas pipelines the company operates across Britain.

Khyam had told Babar that he intended to leave the UK before the bombs were detonated. In the middle of March 2004, he was heard talking to his brother about travel arrangements and the pair then bought plane tickets to Pakistan for April 6. Police decided it was time to move in.

Khawaja was the first to be arrested, in a raid by the Royal Canadian mounted police on his family's home in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans. There was a half-built detonator lying around, and beneath his bed officers found firearms and a bayonet.

Eighteen other people were arrested the next day in raids across south-east England. Behind the shed at Khyam's home, inside a Sainsbury's Danish Butter Cookies tin, police discovered one of the other ingredients needed for a bomb: aluminium powder. Amin surrendered to Pakistani intelligence a few days later.

Babar was picked up by the FBI as he walked along a street in Queens. He was taken to room 538 of Embassy Suites, a luxury Manhattan hotel, where he spent several days being persuaded gently that he should cooperate. Presented with some of the evidence against him - including that he had plotted the assassination of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan - Babar agreed to become the star prosecution witness at the Old Bailey. Although granted immunity from prosecution in the UK, he admitted five terrorism charges in the US and is awaiting sentence.

Relatives of Khyam, who had travelled to Pakistan to bring him back from a terrorism training camp when he was 18, were astonished by his arrest. "It must be a mistake," said his uncle, Ansar Khan. "These boys are the cricketers and Manchester United fans. Fish and chips is their favourite food."

In numbers

406

Days since the trial began

3,500

Hours of covert audio surveillance by MI5

960

Police officers involved in the dawn raids in which defendants and other suspects were arrested three years ago

33,800

Hours staff dedicated to police and MI5 surveillance of the gang

24,000

Hours of surveillance video, CCTV and seized videos examined by police

27

Days the jury spent deliberating, a record for a UK court case

    The phone call that asked: how do you make a bomb?, 1.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2069246,00.html

Free - the man accused of being an al-Qaida leader, aka 'Q'

Tuesday May 1, 2007
Guardian
Ian Cobain and Jeevan Vasagar

A man who was accused of being one of al-Qaida's leaders in Britain and who is alleged to have sent one of the July 7 suicide bombers to a terrorism training camp in Pakistan is living freely in the home counties and is not facing any charges.

According to evidence brought before the Old Bailey jury in the fertiliser bomb plot trial, Mohammed Quayyum Khan, a part-time taxi driver from Luton, is in direct contact with one of Osama bin Laden's most senior lieutenants.

Quayyum, known as "Q" to his alleged al-Qaida associates, is also accused of being the leader of a group of would-be terrorists whose plot to bomb London was foiled 18 months before the 7/7 attacks.

Among the allegations against Q during the year-long trial were that he was:

· the emir, or leader, of a group planning to use a massive fertiliser bomb to attack the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London, or high-pressure gas pipelines around the south-east

· instrumental in arranging for Mohammad Sidique Khan to travel to Pakistan, where he attended a terrorism training camp, in 2003

· a provider of funds and equipment for jihadi militants fighting American forces in Afghanistan

The counter-terrorism operation that culminated in yesterday's court case is understood to have begun with an MI5 investigation into Q in 2003. Despite the number of serious allegations levelled against him at the Old Bailey , police and MI5 say they have never found sufficient evidence to arrest or charge him.

His home has been searched at least once; neighbours have said police tore up floorboards and dug up his garden. However, there appears to be no plan to question him about his alleged link with the men who killed 52 people and injured more than 700 in the London bombings.

Q is in his 40s and married with several children. In recent years he has also used at least three other names similar to Quayyum. He is said to be a former associate of the fundamentalist clerics Omar Bakri Mohammed and Abu Hamza , and is said to have arranged for Bakri to speak in Luton before the preacher was banned from re-entering the UK in after the 7/7 attacks.

Haji Sulaiman, former president of Luton Central mosque, said Q had "brought Omar Bakri [Mohammed] to Luton". He added: "I didn't let him [Omar Bakri] come in our mosque. I didn't like those guys."

Today Q lives in a rented semi-detached house in Luton. Until recently he was working as a part-time taxi driver, and a Guardian journalist has also seen him working as a chef in a small cafe . When approached, he denied he was Q. He is thought to have since disappeared.

He is thought to have been born in Pakistan, a country he has visited often in recent years. The Old Bailey heard that during one trip in 2003 he was followed by the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI. The agents are said to have tracked him overtly to let him know they were aware of his presence there.

He was said in court to be taking orders from a senior al-Qaida figure in Pakistan called Abdul Hadi. He is understood to be Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi who, according to reports in the US, is a Kurd who served as an officer in Saddam Hussein's army. He is said to be a confidant of Bin Laden, and to have acted as an emissary to Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, al-Qaida's leader in Iraq. Iraqi was named by the US state department as a terror suspect shortly after the 9/11 attacks. The US government revealed last Friday that he had been captured several months ago and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Q's alleged relationship with a senior al- Qaida fi gure was claimed by Mohammed Junaid Babar, a member of the fertiliser bomb gang who turned informant after being arrested by the FBI in New York.

Babar told the Old Bailey jury: "Hadi is just giving orders, but underneath Hadi there would be different, I guess you would call it cells, and this was a particular cell. The ultimate emir on top was Hadi. But underneath him there were multiple emirs, three or four emirs, before you reached Abdul Hadi, and Q was one of those emirs."

Babar told the court he had met one of the defendants in the fertiliser plot trial, Salahuddin Amin, at Islamabad airport, where Amin was waiting to meet two British jihadists who had been sent to Pakistan by Q on a "fact finding" mission. Babar said he knew the pair by their noms de guerre, Ibrahim and Zubair. The trial judge ruled that the jury should not be allowed to learn that Ibrahim was actually Sidique Khan, as that fact could prejudice them against the defendants.

Babar said that he, "Ibrahim", and others had driven to a terror training camp, collecting chemicals to make explosives en route, and spent a month learning how to assemble bombs and fire weapons. The court also heard that two young associates of Q from Luton were killed while fighting for the Taliban in Aghanistan in 2001.

While a number of the fertiliser bomb gang admitted knowing Q, his role was disputed during the trial. Amin told the court he had met Q when they were working as taxi drivers in Luton, and that Q was a family friend. He told police Q had sent money and equipment to jihadists in Pakistan, but claimed in court that he made this admission only because he had earlier been tortured for 10 months by the ISI.

He denied that Babar had been present when he met Sidique Khan and denied taking him to a terrorism training camp. The man who was to go on to lead the 7/7 bombers had been sent to him by "brothers in Luton", he told the court, but could not say who they were.

Amin also denied Babar's claim that Q was his emir. Several defence lawyers condemned Babar's account as a concoction of "elaborate lies", saying he was an FBI double agent or that he invented the plot to get a reduced sentence in the U S, where he has admitted terrorist offences.

Prosecution lawyers, on the other hand, said Babar that had been an "impressive, truthful and accurate" witness.

The court also heard that a number of meetings in the UK between Q and one of the defendants, Omar Khyam, had been secretly filmed by MI5, who gave Q the codename Bashful Dwarf.

During cross-examination, Khyam admitted meeting Q shortly before he was about to leave the country . "He gave me money," he told the court. "He said, 'It's better for both of us if we don't meet each other.' Because the security services may be monitoring me." Khyam refused to say how he first met Q, or discuss his role.

Scotland Yard and the security service maintain that there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against Q. The Guardian has repeatedly tried to speak to Mohammed Quayyum Khan about the allegations that were made in court. He has declined to comment.

    Free - the man accused of being an al-Qaida leader, aka 'Q', G, 1.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2069312,00.html

4pm update

Fertiliser bomb plotters jailed for life

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Peter Walker and agencies

Five British men with close links to the July 7 bombers were today jailed for life after being found guilty of a plot to set off a wave of fertiliser-based explosions around the country.

The judge, Sir Michael Astill, told Omar Khyam, 25, the plot ringleader, that he would serve a minimum of 20 years in jail. He warned all five they may spend the rest of their lives in prison.

"You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity," he said. "All of you may never be released," he said, while noting it was not "a foregone conclusion".

Condemning what he called the "preachers of hate who contaminate impressionable young minds", Sir Michael labelled Khyam, who boasted about links to al-Qaida, "ruthless, devious, artful and dangerous".

After the verdicts it emerged that police had monitored Khyam repeatedly in the company of two of the July 7 bombers more than a year before the London suicide explosions killed 52 people, but that officers failed to act on the information.

Khyam, from Crawley, West Sussex, was found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1 2003 and March 31 2004, possessing 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorist purposes, and possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.

Four other men were also found guilty on the first charge: Waheed Mahmood, 35, and Jawad Akbar, 23, also from Crawley; Anthony Garcia, 25, from Barkingside, east London; and Salahuddin Amin, 32, from Luton, Bedfordshire.

Garcia and Mahmood were sentenced to at least 20 years in prison; Akbar and Amin face a minimum of 17 and a half years.

Two other suspects, Nabeel Hussain and Shujah Mahmood, were found not guilty. Garcia was also found guilty of possessing the ammonium nitrate fertiliser but Hussein was cleared of the charge; Shujah Mahmood was found not guilty of possessing aluminium powder.

The plan involved using 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser as the basis for bombs that could have killed hundreds of people, with Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London designated as possible targets, the Old Bailey heard. The group also intended to hit gas and electricity supplies.

Police broke up the plot in 2004 after a major surveillance operation uncovered links between the guilty men and Islamist militants abroad, including al-Qaida.

As soon as the verdicts were returned at the Old Bailey, it emerged that security services watching Khyam had seen him liaise closely with Mohammed Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7 group. He also met another of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer.

Relatives of some of those killed by Khan and his followers demanded to know why police did not act against Khan and Tanweer after they arrested Khyam and his six co-defendants in March 2004, a full 16 months before the July 7 blasts.

Khyam and Khan met at least four times in England while Khyam was under MI5 surveillance and in the final stages of his plotting. On one occasion agents even recorded the pair talking about terrorism. Khyam was seen meeting Tanweer three times.

However, police and intelligence officers regarded Khan and Tanweer as "peripheral" figures, and no action was taken against them even after Khyam and his co-conspirators were detained.

"The consequences of that level of incompetence were such that my son was killed. That is truly appalling," said Graham Foulkes, who lost his 22-year-old son, David, on July 7 2005.

"Could the bombings have been prevented? As a father who lost a son, I am drawn to that conclusion."

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats demanded a full inquiry into why the security agencies failed to use their knowledge to prevent the July 7 attacks.

But in a Commons statement, the home secretary, John Reid, rejected this, saying it would "divert the energies and efforts of so many in the security service and the police who are already stretched greatly in countering that present threat".

Jonathan Evans, who took over as director general of MI5 just over a week ago, issued a statement in which he denied the service had been "complacent", stressing that his organisation would "never have the capacity to investigate everyone who appears on the periphery of every operation".

"The attack on July 7 in London was a terrible event," he added. "The sense of disappointment felt across the service at not being able to prevent the attack, despite our efforts to prevent all such atrocities, will always be with us."

Details of the links to the July 7 pair were outlined in January last year, with the prosecution arguing that the information should be permitted as evidence. The judge, however, ruled that the men might not receive a fair trial if the connection were known.

According to police, Khyam wanted a series of bombs to go off at the same time or one after another on the same day.

One senior police source told the Press Association the plot was "the first time since 9/11 that we had seen a group of British people planning to commit mass murder". The source added: "The level of surveillance, the resources devoted to this were unprecedented. A lot of other policing activity had to stop in order to service this operation."

The British defendants, mostly students of Pakistani descent, grew up mainly in and around Crawley before becoming caught up in extremism. In most cases the men's paths to militancy started at fringe meetings at universities. They went on to attend terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

The five volunteered to fight in Afghanistan but were told they would be of more use to al-Qaida in Britain.

    Fertiliser bomb plotters jailed for life, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068824,00.html

'Supergrass' crucial to fertiliser bomb convictions

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Jeevan Vasagar

Mohammed Junaid Babar was crucial to the prosecution case in the fertiliser bomb plot trial that ended today.

He was the first al-Qaida supergrass to give evidence in a British court and provided a wealth of detail about activities at a camp in Pakistan, where members of the fertiliser bomb cell and July 7 bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan received weapons training.

Babar has immunity from prosecution in Britain after pleading guilty to terrorism offences in a New York federal court. Two of the charges related to the fertiliser bomb plot - he confessed to obtaining ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder for use in bomb-making.

Babar's family moved to the US from Pakistan when he was two, and he became radicalised after the first Gulf war. The university drop-out came under the influence of the militant preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed in the early 90s, joining a New York branch of Bakri's radical group al-Muhajiroun. Abu Hamza, the Finsbury Park mosque preacher, was also an influence.

After the September 11 2001 attacks, he believed it was his duty to go to Pakistan and try to aid the Taliban, even though his mother worked in a bank at the World Trade Centre and had narrowly escaped death. Babar told the jury: "I loved my mother but if she was meant to die in the attack then she was meant to die in the attack."

While in Pakistan, he gave a series of interviews to journalists, including one with Channel Five in which he vowed to kill US troops who entered Afghanistan.

A few months after September 11, he was introduced to Waheed Mahmood as a contact who could get fighters into Afghanistan. In 2002, Babar travelled to Britain to raise money for jihad in Afghanistan and met some of the fertiliser bomb plotters, including Omar Khyam and Anthony Garcia.

Describing the meeting with Khyam, at a mosque in Crawley, West Sussex, he said: "He had a long beard. He was wearing a black robe. We just exchanged greetings."

They went together to talks given by Hamza and militant preacher Abdullah al-Faisal.

Babar told the Old Bailey that in 2003 he met British militants named Ausman, Abdul Waheed, Abdul Rahman and Khalid, in Pakistan. These were aliases of four of the fertiliser bomb plot defendants; Khyam, Waheed Mahmood, Garcia and Salahuddin Amin. Together, they attended a terrorism training camp and tried to make a fertiliser bomb. They were successful once, creating a "U-shaped" hole in the ground.

During his evidence, Babar claimed to have conspired in two attempts to kill the Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, and said he would be facing the death penalty in Pakistan if he had not agreed to collaborate with the FBI.

While in Pakistan, he got a job with the Pakistan Software Export Board but never did any work there. He stole five computers from them, three of which he gave to Mahmood. Pakistan Software Export was run by the brother of a man named Sajeel Shahid, who the court heard was a founder member of al-Muhajiroun in Pakistan.

When Babar returned to New York in March 2004, he was approached in the street by members of the FBI, interviewed him over four days in a hotel. He claimed that he cooperated with them because his wife was still in Pakistan and he knew the authorities were searching for her.

He appeared before a US judge in June 2004 and pleaded guilty to five charges including "conspiracy to provide material support or resources" to al-Qaida. Defence barristers in the fertiliser bomb trial accused him of being a double agent for the US government. Babar's wife and child have been allowed into the US, and the family will have a new life under assumed identities when he is released from prison.

    'Supergrass' crucial to fertiliser bomb convictions, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068956,00.html

Background

'Because British soldiers are killing Muslims'

Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor on the impetus behind the plot to bomb targets in the UK

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor

The roots of the international conspiracy to mount a bomb attack in the UK, which was intended to kill and maim as many people as possible and cause unprecedented disruption, can be traced to a point long before the war in Iraq.

Several of the plotters had come together in 2001, some had discussed "hitting" British targets before the invasion, and at least one had undergone terrorist training before 9/11.

The war, however, clearly provided the impetus - or at least the excuse - for a plan to target the UK. Mohammed Junaid Babar, an American member of the cell who turned supergrass after being picked up by the FBI, admitted that the plotters "believed the UK should be hit because of its support of the US in Afghanistan and Iraq" and because, at that time, "nothing had ever happened in the UK".

The gang, he added, wanted to hit British "pubs, trains and nightclubs ... because British soldiers are killing Muslims".

It is unclear how many bombs were to be detonated. Babar says senior al-Qaida figures wanted the gang to carry out a series of simultaneous attacks.

Sometimes anti-terrorist branch officers, eavesdropping on the gang's conversations, heard references to a single "massive, big out" blast; at other times there was talk of three explosions.

Nor is it clear whether they had agreed on definite targets: one possibility suggested by Waheed Mahmood was "a little explosion at Bluewater - tomorrow if you want", while another was to target the country's 4,200-mile network of underground high-pressure gas pipelines.

Some gang members favoured the Ministry of Sound nightclub in south London. One of the plotters, Jawad Akbar, was heard to reason: "No one can ever turn around and say: 'Oh they were innocent, those slags dancing around. '"

The seven men prosecuted at the Old Bailey, and two gang members detained in New York and Ottawa, were just a small number of the large, floating cast of young Muslim extremists who came under surveillance as part of the joint police and Security Service investigation known as Operation Crevice.

Hundreds of people were watched. Around 18 were suspected of being involved in the plot, although not all were prosecuted. A further 55 came under investigation once the core group were arrested.

Some were so far on the fringes that there was no evidence of any criminality, and others were detained as part of other anti-terrorist investigations. Some were deemed to pose a low threat, and were not investigated further.

Some of the wilder ambitions of this group of would-be killers appear fanciful. There was a belief at one time, for example, that a jihadist associate in Belgium had struck a deal to purchase a "radio-isotope bomb" from the Russian mafia. There was also a plan to sell poisoned burgers from vans outside football grounds.

However, there was nothing far-fetched about the 600kg of ammonium nitrate recovered from a west London storage unit rented by the gang; nor about the half-built remote-controlled detonator found at the home of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, the Canadian technician who was a member of the cell.

Nor was there anything imaginary about the 12-page list of British synagogues recovered from the house in Crawley, West Sussex, where Omar Khyam, one of the gang's leaders, lived.

Operation Crevice, the biggest surveillance operation ever mounted in the UK, began as an MI5 investigation into a suspect living in Luton, Bedfordshire, called Muhammed Quayyum Khan.

The court heard that Quayyum - who was usually known as Q - took orders from a senior al-Qaida figure called Abdul Hadi - now in US custody in Guantanamo Bay - and that he had been sending funds and equipment to militants in Pakistan, as well as arranging for radicalised young British Muslims to travel to training camps.

In February 2004, MI5 intercepted a telephone conversation between two of Q's young associates, Omar Khyam and Salahuddin Amin. Khyam, in Crawley, was talking to Amin, in Pakistan, about the quantities of different ingredients needed to construct a fertiliser bomb.

At that point, Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism branch was brought in to help keep the suspects under surveillance. Eventually, police and MI5 intercepted 97 telephone lines, secretly searched property on 12 occasions, compiled 3,500 hours of surveillance tapes from bugs hidden in the gang's homes and cars, and hid concealed video cameras outside a mosque in the Langley Green area of Crawley and from several internet cafes.

Several of the people under surveillance had fallen under the influence of al-Muhajiroun, the now-outlawed Islamist group formed by Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, after it held a series of meetings in Crawley and Luton.

One of the accusations against al-Muhajiroun was that it acted as a "conveyor belt", pushing radicalised young Muslims in the UK and north America towards jihadist groups.

Babar, for example, an American of Pakistani origin, had been al-Muhajiroun's organiser in Queens, New York. He had been sent to Pakistan with money from the organisation and instructions to establish an office in Peshawar.

As well as the links with al-Qaida through Q in Luton, several members of the gang had also met another al-Qaida suspect named in court as Abu Munthir, a man who also divided his time between Luton and Pakistan.

Abu Munthir was arrested in Pakistan in 2004, but Q remains at liberty in the UK. The jury was told that he has never been arrested or questioned.

Abdul Hadi is thought to be Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi, who has been identified as a terrorist suspect by the US State Department, which is offering $1m for information leading to his capture.

Kyham travelled to Pakistan during the summer of 2003, hoping to fight in Afghanistan. However, the trial heard that Abu Munthir told him that if he was really serious, he should "do something" in Britain.

Several other members of the gang also concluded that they should wage jihad not in Afghanistan or Kashmir, Babar told the jury, but in the UK. He added that Khyam told him his instructions from Abu Munthir were for "multiple bombings", either "simultaneously or one after the other on the same day".

The group began to assume that they would come under surveillance in Pakistan, and started posing as tourists, visiting lakes and glaciers, where they would pose for pictures. They shaved off their beards, wore only western clothing and regularly changed their mobile telephones.

They explored ways of smuggling detonators overland to the UK via a ferry from Belgium. They also employed an ingenious internet-age variant on the dead-letter drop by opening an email account - nicolechic_shara@yahoo.com - and sharing the password.

Messages could be written, saved as drafts, and then retrieved by any member of the cell, anywhere in the world, without being fully transmitted.

In one message, Khyam could be seen to ask Amin to check the precise quantities of chemicals needed for a successful fertiliser bomb. In another, he told Khawaja in Canada: "k bro don't worry we'll be there to pick u up, about the device its better we leave it wil explain later we wil discuss it and maybe show pics at most, see ya soon nigga; we'll talk about the chicks when you get here nigga."

By the end of the summer of 2003, the gang members had separated and returned to their homes in Ottawa, New York and the south east of England. Amin remained in Pakistan, where he had settled two years earlier.

In November that year, a man calling himself John Lewis approached Bodle Brothers, an agricultural merchants in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, asking if the company could supply ammonium nitrate fertiliser.

Lewis, who was actually Rahman Adam, aka Anthony Garcia, eventually bought 600kg, which he said was for his allotment. His plot would have needed to be the size of four football pitches to require that quantity of fertiliser.

Khyam had already been under surveillance for some time by the police and the security service, who were that he was an associate of Q, and that he had spent time in a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in the late 90s. Bugs were planted in his home and car and another in Jawad Akbar's home.

Listening in, M I5 realised the gang was intent on launching a terrorist attack somewhere in south-east London, but were unsure when.

Police and MI5 were also completely unaware at this point that the ammonium nitrate had been bought. The gang had stored it in a £207-a-month lock-up at the Access Self Storage depot in Hanwell, west London. Staff there eventually became suspicious, however, and called police.

A tiny CCTV camera was installed inside the unit hired by the gang, the fertiliser was switched for a harmless substance, and an undercover detective, calling herself Amanda, posed as a receptionist whenever gang members came to the depot.

Over the coming months, police and MI5 compiled 3,500 hours of audio surveillance tapes, many of which became central to the prosecution cases against the men.

Khawaja was watched as he flew into Heathrow, drove with the gang to an internet cafe, and showed them an image of the initiator which he had decided was needed to trigger the bomb- a device which he called a "hifidigimonster".

As well as hearing discussion of possible targets, police heard some of the conspirators refer to 12 CD Roms that had been stolen by Waheed Mahmood, a gas mechanic who had been working for National Grid Transco. The discs detailed the precise locations of some of the high-pressure gas pipelines that the company operates across Britain.

Khyam had told Babar that he intended to leave the UK before the bombs were detonated. In mid March 2004, he was heard talking to his brother about travel arrangements, and the pair then bought airline tickets for Pakistan for April 6th. Police decided it was time to move in.

Khawaja was the first to be arrested, in a raid by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on his family's home in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans. There was a half-built detonator lying around, and officers found a number of firearms and a bayonet beneath his bed.

Eighteen others people were arrested in a wave of raids around the south-east of England the following day. Behind the shed at Khyam's home, inside a Sainsbury's Danish Butter Cookies tin, police discovered one of the other ingredients needed for the bomb: aluminium powder. Amin surrendered to Pakistani intelligence officials a few days later.

Babar was picked up by the FBI as he walked along a street in Queens. Instead of being taken to a police station and charged, however, he was taken to room 538 of Embassy Suites, a luxury Manhattan hotel, where he spent several days being persuaded gently that he should co-operate.

Presented with some of the evidence against him - including evidence that he had plotted the assassination of Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan - Babar agreed to become the star prosecution witness at the Old Bailey. Although granted immunity from prosecution in the UK, he admitted five terrorism charges in the US and is now awaiting sentence.

There was profound shock in Crawley, where a number of the conspirators were arrested. Even relatives of Khyam, who had travelled to Pakistan to bring him back from a terrorism training camp when he was aged just 17, were astonished.

"It must be a mistake," his uncle, Ansar Khan, said. "These boys are the cricketers and Manchester United fans. Fish and chips is their favourite food."

    'Because British soldiers are killing Muslims', NYT, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068846,00.html

11.45am

The five who planned to bomb UK targets

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Jeevan Vasagar

Omar Khyam

Khyam, 25, from Crawley, was drawn to radical Islam in his teens. Motivated by family ties to Pakistan and the radical group al-Muhajiroun, Khyam flew to Pakistan in 2000 when he was 18 and attended a training camp where he was taught to use a Kalashnikov rifle. He returned to Pakistan in 2003, and met the leader of the July 7 London bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan.
Khyam's family had a tradition of serving in the Pakistani military and the ISI, the intelligence service. He was regarded as a pivotal figure in the fertiliser plot. His jihadist activities appear to have left little time for either work or study; he got on to university courses in three successive years but dropped out each time.

As a child, he went to a predominantly white school and his social circle was non-Muslim. His family paid so little attention to religion that their family Qur'an was dusty with disuse.

His parents divorced in the late 1990s, when Omar was 10 and his father lived in Belgium for much of the year, where he had a business selling clothes. His mother did not speak or write much English and the eldest son took on family responsibilities at a young age, writing cheques on her behalf. Khyam was captain of the school cricket team, and easily reconciled his British and Pakistani culture - supporting England at football but Pakistan at cricket. He was popular and academically gifted.

He became more interested in Islam in his teens. At the end of his GCSE year, Khyam started to pray five times a day, and was reading the Qur'an and Islamic books. When he started his A-levels , Khyam went to meetings of al-Muhajiroun, led by Omar Bakri Mohammed, who talked of establishing an Islamic state.

He was shown videos of the war in Chechnya, featuring graphic footage of the dead bodies of fellow Muslims and bullet-riddled buildings to a soundtrack of Qur'anic verses and nasheed, Islamic music.

Videos from Bosnia were even more graphic and portrayed the Serbs attempting to annihilate Bosnian Muslims. Because of his origins, and the family tradition of serving in the Pakistani military, Kashmir was always an issue close to Khyam's heart. In 1999, on a family holiday to Pakistan, he came across a group fighting in Kashmir and asked if he could help.

The young Briton, then 17, clean-shaven and wearing western clothes, was told he was welcome to take part in military training but ought to grow his beard and look more like a Muslim first.

That year, he claims to have left al-Muhajiroun because he did not believe their goal of creating an Islamic state in Britain was realistic. By the end of 1999, he had decided to devote himself to the Kashmiri Muslim cause and go to Pakistan to do military training.

He flew to Pakistan in January 2000, asking his mother for money for what he claimed was a college trip to France and stayed three months, attending a training camp near Muzaffarabad, where he claims to have been taught how to fire a Kalashnikov, pistols and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

Mr Khyam said he did not take part in explosives training himself but saw the ISI provide bomb training to selected recruits. Using their military connections, Khyam's family tracked him down and brought him back to Britain. In the summer of 2001 Khyam attended a friend's wedding in Pakistan and caught up with old friends from the camp. He crossed the border to Afghanistan and went to Kabul where he was impressed by the Taliban, describing them as coming "very close" to the ideals of the prophet.

He was happy about the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, a country that he regarded as "the greatest enemy of Islam".

The Afghan war which started that October and Britain's role in it was a turning point. That, Khyam recalled, was when he first heard other British Muslims talk about committing acts of violence in the UK.

Khyam started raising money to be sent to Pakistan for the Kashmiri cause. In 2003, he returned to Pakistan. Again there was a friend's wedding to attend but his ulterior motive was to attend terrorism training camps.

In November 2003, he instructed Anthony Garcia to buy the fertiliser that was allegedly to be used for bombs. In early 2004, MI5 recorded a series of contacts between Khyam and Sidique Khan, including a conversation in which the future July 7 ringleader told him: "There is no one higher than you".

Khyam has one previous conviction; in January 2003 he was conditionally discharged for 12 months from an offence of using disorderly behaviour or threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The charge related to an incident where he rubbed up against a woman in a busy train carriage.

Anthony Garcia

Garcia, 24, was born in Algeria and moved to east London with his family at the age of five. He is the only member of the cell who did not have roots in Pakistan.

Garcia told the jury he was sometimes regarded as an "Ali G" figure, a playboy who was keener on basketball, girls and rap than politics. He dreamed of being a male model, changing his name from Rahman Adam because he thought Garcia "had a better ring to it". In his diary, Garcia claimed people thought he was a "superstar" because of his designer jeans, sunglasses and crocodile shoes.

He was drawn to the Islamist cause after watching a video about alleged atrocities in Kashmir at his college Islamic society. He won respect among fellow Muslims by fundraising for Kashmiri militants.

Garcia got to know Khyam through his older brother after the two met at an Islamic fair at the University of East London in October 2002. He attended training camps in Pakistan and bought the 600kg of ammonium nitrate that would allegedly be used for the bombing campaign in Britain. Typically, he turned up at the fertiliser suppliers in a black Audi hatchback with the music of rapper Tupac blaring from the speakers.

Waheed Mahmood

Mahmood, 35, was the oldest defendant and a pillar of the Muslim community in Crawley. He was outwardly respectable, running Sunday school classes at the local mosque for children with learning difficulties.

But the prosecution claimed that he was also an al-Qaida fixer and weapons quartermaster. After the September 11 attacks he moved to Pakistan and helped other Britons cross into Afghanistan to join jihadist groups.

He returned to Britain in 2003, and was living in Crawley with his wife and four children when he was arrested. He was regarded as the spiritual leader of the fertiliser bomb plot, an inspirational figure rather than a man of action.

Mahmood is said to have dreamed up the idea of a terrorist attack in Britain. The prosecution said he came up with a plan to kill fans at football stadiums with poisoned beer and burgers.

Just before his arrest he was working for a subcontractor of National Grid Transco, labelling new gas meters, and the prosecution claim he stole CDs containing maps of high pressure gas pipes for a planned strike on utilities. He applied for his job at Transco just days after Garcia bought the fertiliser in November 2003.

Mahmood met Khyam in the late 1990s in Crawley, most likely at the mosque. They became friends and he built a bookshelf that is now in the Khyam family's loft. In court, Khyam recalled that they once talked of a wedding party in Afghanistan that was bombed by the Americans, and the older man said: "How would they like it if someone bombed in America or Britain and we turned round and said collateral damage?"

In July 1993, Mahmood received a conditional discharge for two years and was ordered to pay costs of £75 at Crawley magistrates court for using threatening, abusive or insulting words during a Muslim demonstration.

Salahuddin Amin

Amin, 32, is regarded as a leading member of the cell, helping to link the Britons to the al-Qaida hierarchy. He was born in London, but grew up in Pakistan, returning to Britain to study when he was 16.

He lived in Luton and took GCSEs at a college in Dunstable before studying for a degree at the University of Hertfordshire. He played football and cricket for Asian teams in Luton and did not appear overtly religious - he drank alcohol and dated women.

That changed after he met jihadist recruiters on a trip to Pakistan in 1999. He was angered by the treatment of Muslims in Kashmir and started going to the Finsbury Park mosque to hear Abu Hamza speak.

Amin began using money earned while working as a taxi driver in Dunstable to fund jihadist groups. He and Khyam first met at a Luton mosque where they both attended Islamic study circles. This mosque, in Leagrave Road, was also the venue for a meeting between Amin and a north African Islamist named Abu Munthir, currently believed to be in prison in Pakistan.

Amin sometimes visited Crawley, and came into contact with Waheed Mahmood at a mosque there. He left for Pakistan in November 2001 after defrauding British banks and building societies of £21,000.

According to Mohammed Babar, the FBI supergrass who was the prosecution's star witness, Amin said he was working for Abdul Hadi, a senior al-Qaida figure in Pakistan. He gave himself up to Pakistani security services in 2004 after the other alleged plotters were arrested. He returned to Britain in 2005 and was arrested at Heathrow.

Jawad Akbar

Akbar, 23, was the cell member who suggested attacking the Ministry of Sound nightclub. In a bugged conversation, he said: "No one can even turn around and say, 'Oh they were innocent, all those slags dancing around'."

Akbar was born in Pakistan but moved to Britain with his mother and three siblings in 1992 and lived a few minutes' walk from Khyam in Crawley. Although he and Khyam were never close friends they saw each other playing sport at local fields. They were together In the summer of 2003 at a Pakistani training camp, where members of the cell were taught how to use weapons and explosives. They got to know each other better there.

He and Khyam went to the same secondary school, Hazelwick, in Crawley, where Akbar was in the year below. He was keen on sport and played cricket for the Crawley Eagles.

Akbar was radicalised by watching an emotive film about anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat. The jury was shown the video, called The Gujarat Atrocities: Personal Accounts of the Victims. It featured harrowing accounts of abuse, torture and rape, and showed the charred bodies of infants being carried to their graves. In the film, a woman whose family had been killed, says: "This is how terrorists are born. We are not terrorists but we will become terrorists."

Between 1999 and 2000, Akbar worked at Gatwick airport, first in the Dixon's 'air-side' branch, then at the newsagent Journey's Friend. He later worked at First Choice and Next's air-side branches at Gatwick.

In September 2001 he enrolled on a four-year MSc degree in multimedia, technology and design at Brunel University. When police raided his family home in Crawley they found the Mujahideen Explosive Handbook which contained a recipe for making a fertiliser bomb.

    The five who planned to bomb UK targets, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068835,00.html

3.30pm

Anatomy of a bomb plot

Guardian Unlimited
Monday April 30, 2007

May 7 2003

Omar Khyam arrives in Pakistan and stays until August. According to an interview given by Salahuddin Amin, Khyam wanted explosives training "in order to do something in the UK". Two days' training take place near a town called Kohat. Amin and Khyam participate.

June/July 2003

Khyam's brother Shujah Mahmood arrives In Pakistan on June 27. Momin Khawaja and Jawad Akbar arrive on July 16 and July 25 respectively. Garcia had arrived in Pakistan on February 10. On July 25, Amin meets Siddique Khan and another British Islamist known as Zubair at Islamabad airport. They have, it is alleged in court, been sent to Pakistan by Q. Training takes place at Malakand camp in Pakistan involving Khyam, Mahmood, Garcia, Akbar and Khawaja. Experiments are conducted with ammonium nitrate and aluminium powder.

November

Garcia buys 600kg of fertiliser and books a storage unit at Access Self Storage in west London. He provides co-defendant Nabeel Hussain's debit card to pay the deposit. The fertiliser is transported to the lock-up on November 11.

February 2 2004

Siddique Khan and Shezad Tanweer are seen with a number of the plotters and a close-up still of Siddique Khan's face is obtained by security services at a service station.

February 11 to 19 2004

Police become involved in the security service operation. Monitoring of email traffic shows Khyam is in contact with Khawaja in Canada. They discuss how to make a remote-controlled detonator.

February 20 to 22 2004

Khawaja visits Britain. On February 20, police swap the ammonium nitrate fertiliser in the lock-up for a harmless substitute. On February 21, the July 7 bomber Sidique Khan Is heard discussing travel plans with Khyam, who has bought an airline ticket for Pakistan.

February 23 to March 16 2004

The plotters discuss possible targets. The Madrid bombing takes place on March 11. On February 28, Siddique Khan and Tanweer are seen in the company of the fertiliser bomb plotters.

March 19 2004

In Khyam's car, a conversation is recorded between Khyam and Waheed Mahmood. Mahmood asks "is it worth getting all the brothers together tonight and asking who would be ready to go?". In relation to the Madrid bombing, Mahmood says, "Spain was a beautiful job weren't it, absolutely beautiful man, so much impact".

March 23 2004

Khyam travels in convoy with Sidique Khan and Tanweer to addresses in Slough and east London.

March 29 2004

Police arrest Khawaja in Canada.

March 30 2004

All other defendants, except Amin, are arrested at addresses in south-east England.

February 8 2005

Amin Is arrested when he arrives at Heathrow airport having just arrived from Islamabad.

April 30, 2007

Five defendants are found guilty at the Old Bailey. Shujah-ud-din Mahmood and Nabeel Hussain are cleared of all charges.

    Anatomy of a bomb plot, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068868,00.html

My night of jihad

April 30, 2007
3:30 PM
The Guardian
Jon Ronson
 

It turns out that - according to Old Bailey testimony - Omar Khyam, the now convicted "ringleader" of the fertiliser bomb plot, was first radicalised in a Scout hut just outside Crawley by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, leader of al-Muhajiroun.

Omar Khyam is 25 now, which means he was 15 in 1997 when I visited the scout hut and spent an evening watching Omar Bakri radicalise his young audience. I don't know if Omar Khyam was there that night, although that's the kind of age the kids were. During that period of Omar Khyam's life he apparently supported the England football team but the Pakistan cricket team. It was Omar Bakri's job to teach the kids that they were not British. They were Muslim.

It is probably worth noting down my memories of that night in the Scout hut.

It was January 1997. The director Saul Dibb and I had spent a year with Omar Bakri, filming him for a documentary. On that January evening, the first evening of Ramadan, he finally allowed us to travel with him to his "secret jihad training camp" near Crawley.

I can't remember who first called the Scout hut a "secret jihad training camp" - it might have been Saul or me, or it might have been Omar Bakri himself. But we always used the terms as a bit of a joke. Back then we never really believed that Omar Bakri's people were violent or motivated enough to actually initiate a jihad or commit acts of terrorism.

Now, Omar Khyam has been convicted of plotting to target the Ministry of Sound nightclub or the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. His fellow plotters were surveilled meeting the 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan four times in 2004.

That night in January 1997, Omar Bakri, Saul and I were picked up at Three Bridges railway station by two cars full of Omar's local followers. These were people I had never seen before. We travelled in convoy to the camp, which turned out to be a well-stocked gym in a Scout hut in a forestry centre. Snow lay on the ground. There were perhaps 30 youngsters there. There were punchbags, and I think a few treadmills, and a TV that showed videos, presumably of abuses against Muslims in Chechnya and Bosnia.

One young man wearing boxing gloves was beating a punchbag, and Omar Bakri immediately instructed him to focus his assault.

"On the head," he said. "That's it. The head! Easy. Easy. Okay, stop now. Rest, rest! You kill him! You kill him!"

The group laughed, and I laughed too.

Then Omar Bakri gave them a lecture. It would have been a variation on a lecture he frequently gave: "There is a time when a military struggle must take place in the UK. Jihad. It's called conquering. One day, without question, the UK is going to be governed by Islam. The Muslims in Britain must not be naive. You must be ready to defend yourselves militarily. The struggle is a struggle between two civilisations, the civilisation of man against the civilisation of God."

I was standing in one corner, with my back against the wall. I found this situation slightly uncomfortable. And then, apropos of nothing, Omar made an announcement to the group.

"Look at me!" he said. "Here I am with two infidels. Saul is an atheist. And Jon ...'"Omar paused for effect, "... is a JEW."

There was an audible gasp, followed by a long silence. Of all the locations in which Omar could have chosen to disclose this sensational revelation, a packed jihad training camp in the middle of a forest was not the place I would have hoped for. I found myself searching for the fastest path to the door.

"Are you really a Jew?" said someone, eventually.

"Well," I said lightly, "surely it is better to be a Jew than an atheist."

There was a silence.

"No it isn't," said a voice from the crowd.

Then a group of them surrounded me and asked me a lot of questions about what it was like to be a Jew. They treated me like a rare fish you'd find at the bottom of a coral reef. One of them said he'd never met a Jew before, and that I seemed all right. I told them that being a Jew was completely all right. I left the jihad training camp that evening feeling that it had gone very well and that I had bridged the gap between the Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK.

A few years later, in December 2001, I was in the US plugging my book Them, which details my year with Omar Bakri. I went on Fox News.

"And Omar Bakri took you to a jihad training camp ..." the interviewer said.

From the corner of my eye I noticed that they'd cut to library footage of a jihad training camp. The jihad training camp in the video seemed a lot more frightening that the one in Crawley. In the video they were beating down doors and throwing hand grenades into rooms, etc. My jihad training camp seemed a lot more genteel than that. It was a gym and a lecture by Omar Bakri. Although nowadays it doesn't seem quite as genteel.

    My night of jihad, G, 30.4.2007, http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jon_ronson/2007/04/my_night_of_jihad.html

5pm update

MI5 chief denies complacency over July 7 bombers

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
David Batty


The head of MI5 today denied the security service had been complacent after it emerged that officers were monitoring two of the July 7 London bombers more than a year before the blasts.
Jonathan Evans, the MI5 director general, took the unusual step of defending officers who had monitored Mohammed Sidique Khan - the July 7 ringleader - and Shehzad Tanweer, another of the bombers, meeting the leader of another terrorist cell.

In a statement published on the MI5 website today, Mr Evans said the service "has never been complacent".

"The attack on 7 July in London was a terrible event," his statement added. "The sense of disappointment, felt across the service, at not being able to prevent the attack, despite our efforts to prevent all such atrocities, will always be with us."

In another unusual move - sanctioned by the home secretary, John Reid - MI5 also issued an explanation of why officers involved in the investigation of Khyam and his four co-conspirators were not able to prevent the London bombings.

"Khan and Tanweer were never identified during the fertiliser plot investigation because they were not involved in the planned attacks," the statement said.

"Rather, they appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the plot. There was no indication that they were involved in planning any kind of terrorist attack in the UK."

The statement was issued after a court heard that police and MI5 officers had failed to act on information linking Khan and Tanweer to Omar Khyam, the leader of a separate terrorist cell, who had plotted to set off a string of fertiliser-based explosions around the country.

Khyam and four other men were today found guilty at the Old Bailey of conspiring to cause explosions, and were jailed for life.

The court heard that Khyam and Khan had met in England at least four times while Khyam was under MI5 surveillance and in the final stages of his planning. On one occasion, agents even recorded the pair talking about terrorism.

Khyam was seen meeting Tanweer three times. However, police and intelligence officers regarded Khan and Tanweer as "peripheral" figures, and no action was taken against them, even after Khyam and his fellow plotters were detained.

Mr Evans said the statement on the MI5 website made it "clear" that the service would never have the capacity to investigate everyone who appears on the periphery of every operation.

"The severity of the threat facing our country means expanding counter-terrorist operations at an unprecedented rate just to keep pace," he said.

"We calculate the number of those with similarly violent intentions to those convicted today has increased substantially since 2005."

Mr Reid today ruled out a public inquiry into the July 7 attacks, telling the Commons such a move would divert the police and security services away from the fight against terrorism.

However, he said the prime minister had agreed that the parliamentary intelligence and security committee - which has already investigated the London blasts attacks - should look again at the evidence.

Relatives of victims of the London bombings renewed their calls for a public inquiry into MI5's monitoring of the bombers.

"The consequences of that level of incompetence were such that my son was killed," Graham Foulkes, who lost his 22-year-old son, David, on July 7, said. "That is truly appalling.

"Could the bombings have been prevented? As a father who lost a son, I am drawn to that conclusion."

    MI5 chief denies complacency over July 7 bombers, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2069064,00.html

12.15pm

Fertiliser plotters linked to July 7 bombers

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Ian Cobain, Richard Norton-Taylor and Jeevan Vasagar

The security service watched two of the July 7 suicide bombers, Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, almost 18 months before the attacks on London, it can be revealed today.

MI5 officers followed Sidique Khan and recorded his voice during a massive surveillance exercise, codenamed Operation Crevice, which gathered information on men planning attacks in Britain using fertiliser bombs.

Sidique Khan and Tanweer were repeatedly seen in the company of Omar Khyam, who was today found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions which would endanger life. Four of Khyam's co-defendants were also convicted by an Old Bailey jury.

During their trial, the judge ruled that the defendants might not receive a fair trial if the July 7 links were known.

In January last year, before the trial began, the prosecution had argued - unsuccessfully - that the links with the 2005 London bombings should be allowed as evidence. During those arguments, prosecution lawyers detailed the way in which Sidique Khan had fallen under MI5 surveillance on at least four separate occasions during the investigation into the fertiliser bomb plot in early 2004. Tanweer came into the picture three times.

MI5 officers first saw, and photographed, Sidique Khan at Toddington service station on the M1, after he had met other terrorism suspects on February 2 2004. He was driving a green Honda Civic, and the officers established immediately the name and address to which the car was registered.

Later that month, MI5 officers tailed both Sidique Khan and Tanweer for a total of 15 hours as they drove around in the Honda. The pair were followed from Crawley, West Sussex, to Slough, Berkshire, up to Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, and finally back to Slough. However, they were in a two-car convoy, led by a silver-coloured Suzuki Vitara jeep driven by Omar Khyam, the leader of the fertiliser bomb gang.

Khyam was the real target of the surveillance operation: he was about to be arrested along with other members of his gang. MI5 had decided, on the basis of bugged conversations, that Sidique Khan was largely interested in petty fraud.

On February 21, Sidique Khan was heard discussing travel plans with Khyam, who had bought an airline ticket for Pakistan - a move that police and MI5 took as a sign the gang was ready to strike.

Khyam appeared to be making similar arrangements for Sidique Khan, asking him: "This is a one-way ticket, bruv, yeah, you agree with that, yeah? You're happy with this ... basically ... because you're going to leave now, you may as well rip the country apart economically as well. All the brothers are running scams. All the brothers that are leaving are doing it. That's all I've got to say, bruv. Is there anything you'd like to ask? Then fire away."

Sidique Khan asked if he could delay his journey - his wife was six months' pregnant - and was told by Khyam: "No problem."

The pair seemed to be talking about fraud in the UK, and about waging jihad abroad. At one point Khyam told Sidique Khan that within two weeks of landing in Pakistan he would be "at the front". However, there were also hints that Sidique Khan may have been seeking martyrdom. At one point, talking either about his wife or their unborn child, he said: "With regards to the babe, I am debating whether or not to say goodbye and so forth."

    Fertiliser plotters linked to July 7 bombers, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068884,00.html

Analysis

Security services have questions to answer over 7/7 links

As court papers reveal a link between the July 7 terrorists and the fertiliser bomb plotters, questions are being asked over whether MI5 could have prevented the London attacks

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Richard Norton-Taylor

Britain's security services were criticised today for failing to prevent the July 7 attacks on London after it emerged that two of the four suicide bombers had come to the attention of MI5 more than a year earlier.

Newly released court papers, together with a parliamentary committee report last year, revealed how Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - two of the July 7 bombers - first appeared on the security services' radar, reviving debate over the handling of the intelligence.

But for MI5 it was a question of resources. It was working against the backdrop of 30 suspect terrorist networks identified in Britain in 2003. In 2004, this figure had increased to 50.

The fertiliser bomb investigation started in March 2003 and became Britain's biggest ever counter-terrorism operation. There were tens of thousands of hours of surveillance and the interception of 97 telephone lines. The probe uncovered 55 individuals known to have been associated with the plotters - all people MI5 says it would have liked to have pursued. Of these, 15 were considered "essential" targets on the basis of the evidence against them.

The remaining 40, including those later identified as Khan and Tanweer were "parked up", that is, not treated as urgent cases. MI5 insisted that the two had not been heard discussing terrorist acts in Britain. "Like many, they were talking about jihadi activity in Pakistan and support for the Taliban and about UK foreign policy," said one security official. But MI5 maintained that the intelligence collected on them had not indicated that they posed a terrorist threat.

In July 2004 operations against all 55 of the Crevice plotters' associates were suspended as intelligence warned of a new danger. A joint police /MI5 investigation, codenamed Operation Rhyme, revealed that new plots to cause mass casualties in the UK were being directly funded and controlled by al-Qaida leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These involved dedicated and well-trained British terrorists. This investigation led a series of arrests in August 2004, including that of Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert sentenced last November for conspiracy to murder in a series of explosions, including a radioactive "dirty bomb."

Security officials suggested that if MI5 had then the new information technology and extra staff they had now, the two July suicide bombers might have been identified earlier. However, they also said that as their resources increased - MI5 staff numbers would have risen from just over 2,000 in 2004 to 3,500 next year - so had the scale of the problem.

Before she stepped down last week, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, said the agency was targeting more than 1,600 individuals actively engaged in promoting attacks here and abroad and that 200 "networks" involved in terrorism were based in Britain.

MI5's message is that there is always a danger that some of these individuals will slip through its net and there is no such thing as complete security.

    Security services have questions to answer over 7/7 links, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2069073,00.html

MI5 answers its critics

This is the full text of a Q&A published by MI5 on its website today of links between the 7 July bombers and the fertiliser plot

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


Introduction

This account sets out what the security service and police knew of the links between those involved in the 2004 "fertiliser plot" - the trial of which ended on 30 April 2007 - and two members of the group responsible for the July 7 2005 terrorist attacks in London. It has not been possible to make this information public until the end of the trial for legal reasons.

The security service and police are publishing this account to provide an answer to the question: "If the security service and police had already come across two of the bombers before 2005, why did they not prevent the attacks in London on 7 July?"

It also explains what the security service has done and is continuing to do to prevent further attacks. There is a brief summary at the end of this account to provide an update on our current work.

Why did the service and the police not prevent July 7?

The security service and police were appalled by the attacks of July 7, and it is deeply frustrating that we were not able to prevent them. It is true that the security service and police did come across two of the 7 July bombers - Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - during the earlier investigation into the fertiliser plot. However, even with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been impossible from the available intelligence to conclude that either Khan or Tanweer posed a terrorist threat to the British public.


Khan and Tanweer were never identified during the fertiliser plot investigation because they were not involved in the planned attacks. Rather, they appeared as petty fraudsters in loose contact with members of the plot. There was no indication that they were involved in planning any kind of terrorist attack in the UK.

The intelligence leads generated by the investigation into the July 7 bombings enabled the security service and police to go back over the fertiliser plot records and put names to voices and faces. The details below need to be read with these facts in mind.

The fertiliser plot

Throughout 2003-4, the security service and police undertook "Operation Crevice," a large-scale investigation into a terrorist conspiracy known as the "fertiliser plot" - so-called because a group of individuals planned to detonate a fertiliser-based explosive device in the UK. Despite the improvised nature of the device, success of the plot would have resulted in a huge loss of life as the possible targets included a nightclub and a shopping centre.

At the time, this was both the security service's and the police's largest-ever counter terrorist operation. The scale of intelligence gathering meant switching resources from other less urgent investigations. It also meant making judgements on a daily basis about where to concentrate resources based on who presented the greatest threat to the UK public.

It was in the investigation of this conspiracy that Khan and Tanweer first came to the security service's attention as unidentified individuals on the periphery of the plot. To give an idea of scale, the links between the fertiliser plot bombers and Khan and Tanweer represent less than 0.1% of all the links on record in relation to the fertiliser plot investigation.

Khan and Tanweer links to the fertiliser plot


1. Two men discuss fraud scams at fundraising meetings

During February and March 2004, an unknown man subsequently identified as Khan met with members of the fertiliser plot on five occasions. He was accompanied by another unknown man, subsequently identified as Tanweer, on three of these occasions. The meetings took place in Crawley, the home of several of the fertiliser plot conspirators. There was no indication as a result of the intelligence available at the time on these meetings that either Khan or Tanweer were involved in terrorist plotting. These meetings appeared to centre on the raising of money. Conversations record Khan and Tanweer discussing how to raise cash through a variety of fraud scams, such as purchasing building equipment on credit, defaulting on payment and selling the goods on for cash. There is no record of Khan and Tanweer discussing terrorist activity or bomb building.

The security service did record another conversation involving an individual identified after 7 July as Khan. From the context of the recorded conversation it is possible that Khan was talking about going to fight with militia groups in the Pakistani border areas.

2. A man called 'Ibrahim'

It has become clear since 7 July that Khan was known to detainees held outside the UK in early 2004. Some detainees had mentioned men from the UK, known only by pseudonyms, who had travelled to Pakistan in 2003 and sought meetings with al-Qaida figures. In the aftermath of the July 7 attacks, Khan was identified by a detainee (who had seen a press photograph) as one of the UK men, known to him only as "Ibrahim".

Follow-up investigations in 2004 into the unidentified men on the periphery of the fertiliser plot included the circulation of photographs to foreign intelligence services in an attempt to identify these individuals. Photographs of Khan were shown to two detainees who had provided the earlier information, but without a positive result.

If Khan had been recognised, the security service might have allocated more resources to investigating him. However, given the operational priorities at the time, there is no guarantee that Khan would have been seen as a high priority target even then. In the event, the investigation was put on hold due to the need to focus on far more urgent cases posing potential large-scale threats to life.

3. Investigation of Khan and Tanweer post 7/7

Following the atrocities of 7/7, the security service and police undertook a large-scale investigation into the perpetrators of the attacks. It was only at this point that the identities of Khan and Tanweer became clear.

Painstaking analysis of surveillance records following the attacks, in order to determine what - if anything - of the bombers was known to the security service and police prior to 7/7, revealed their presence on the periphery of the fertiliser plot. Examination of Khan's telephone records showed his contact with Omar Khyam. This, along with a subsequent review of surveillance photographs taken during the fertiliser plot investigations, confirmed his presence in meetings with Khyam and others during February/March 2004.

What is the Service doing to prevent further attacks?

The fertiliser plot, the July 7 attacks, and the other plots the security service has either disrupted or investigated all show that the threat from extremists has been growing since 9/11. As the then director-general, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, said in a speech to students at Queen Mary college, University of London, last November: "Because of the sheer scale of what we face the task is daunting." When the fertiliser plot took place it was one of 50 networks of which the service was aware. By the time of Dame Eliza's speech three years later the security service had intelligence on 200 networks involving some 1600 individuals.

Expansion of the security service to counter this threat to the UK has been under way since the attacks in the US in 2001. This has not only meant recruiting more staff and establishing and developing the security service's network of UK offices, but also increasing the capability of the organisation to gather and assess intelligence.

This is bringing successes, some public, some not. Most recently, there was extensive coverage of the disruption of an alleged plot to blow up passenger jets over the Atlantic. The increase in the conviction of people for terrorism offences since July 7 is evidence that the security service is not, as some have suggested, exaggerating the threat. The creation of the centre for the protection of the national infrastructure (CPNI) in February this year will improve the advice we provide to public and private sector industries on how to guard against terrorist attack.

It is only by working with others in this way, as Dame Eliza pointed out in her speech, that the security service can succeed against the scale of threat we face. This means working with the police, other UK agencies, government and the private sector, security and intelligence services internationally - and, more broadly, with the help and support of the UK public.

    MI5 answers its critics, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2069079,00.html

4pm update

Call for July 7 inquiry after bomb plot verdict

Monday April 30, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
James Sturcke and agencies

Opposition politicians and survivors of the July 7 terror attacks in London today demanded an independent inquiry into the atrocities after it emerged that MI5 had been monitoring two members of the terror cell more than a year before the bombings.

Rachel North, who survived the blast on the Piccadilly line underground train, said she was shocked and appalled when she first learned that the July 7 ringleader, Mohammed Sidique Khan, had been a close associate of Omar Khyam, the man convicted today of plotting a massive fertiliser bomb attack in Britain.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats demanded a full inquiry into why the security agencies failed to use this knowledge to prevent the London attacks.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said two facts were now "crystal clear".

"First, our intelligence services were monitoring two of the London bombers, but stopped before July 2005. Second, whether deliberately or not, the government have not told the British public the whole truth about the circumstances and mistakes leading up to the July 7 attacks.

"The case for an independent inquiry into the attacks of July 2005 is now overwhelming. It is the only way to achieve clarity for the British public, closure for the bereaved and ensure the security services and government learn the lessons to help prevent another attack."

But in a Commons statement, the home secretary, John Reid, said he would not agree to an inquiry, saying this would "divert the energies and efforts of so many in the security service and the police who are already stretched greatly in countering that present threat".

Ms North said she had believed the government and security officials when they said in the immediate aftermath of July 7 that nothing had been known about those responsible and nothing could have been done to prevent it. When that illusion was shattered it came as a massive shock. "I remember that Charles Clarke [the then home secretary] came out and said 'These bombings came out of the blue, these men are cleanskins'," she said, using a police term for people not previously linked to terrorism.

"It was tempting to believe that these guys had never been known to the police or the security services, that they had somehow managed to make these bombs and drive down to London and get on Tube trains and a bus, and that it was a terrible tragedy and there was nothing anybody could have done to stop them.

"When it transpired that was not the case, it was devastating. This has fuelled my desire for an independent inquiry [into the bombings] because it appears we have not been told the truth about what happened and what we knew about these bombers prior to 7/7."

In light of the revelations, Ms North said, she believed the atrocity could have been prevented.

"These guys [Khan and his right-hand man, Shehzad Tanweer] were driving around with terrorists, they were engaged in criminal activity to raise money, they were known to be fans of extremist preachers, they had been abroad and trained to bring the battle to the UK, they were hanging around with people planning a bomb plot. They were right at the top of the scale.

"I understand it is impossible to track every single person who might be expressing support for jihad, but these people were certainly not cleanskins."

Graham Foulkes, who lost his 22-year-old son David, a media sales manager for the Guardian, in the Edgware Road blast, said that when he learned the truth about the July 7 link to Khan he was "absolutely overwhelmed with a sense of sheer disbelief".

"The consequences of that level of incompetence were such that my son was killed. That is truly appalling," he said.

"I think John Reid [the home secretary] summed it up when he said his department was not fit for purpose.

"July 7 showed the devastating consequences of the system not being fit for purpose, and yet by not holding an inquiry John Reid has shown he is happy with the current system - one that is not fit for purpose. I find it beyond my understanding that he has not called an inquiry."

Nader Mozakka, who lost his wife, Behnaz, in the King's Cross blast, said: "I always had a suspicion there was more to it than they told us at the time.

"I have been through so many hoops, trying to put pressure on them to get an inquiry. That is the only way forward. We need to know exactly what happened."

Iranian-born Mrs Mozakka, a 47-year-old mother of two, was a biomedical officer at London's Great Ormond Street children's hospital and lived in Finchley.

    Call for July 7 inquiry after bomb plot verdict, G, 30.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2068920,00.html

6.30pm update

Lib Dems and Tories round on Blair over anti-terror leaks

Wednesday April 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland


Pressure mounted on the government today over claims that ministers or their special advisers may have leaked sensitive counter-terrorism details, as the Liberal Democrats called on police to investigate whether the Official Secrets Act had been breached and the Tories called for a formal inquiry.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dems' home affairs spokesman, approached West Midlands police asking them to confirm whether the force would investigate leaks surrounding anti-terror raids in Birmingham earlier this year, after Tony Blair ruled out holding an investigation into the claims at prime minister's question time today.

This follows a separate move by the Conservatives, who formally requested an inquiry into claims that ministers or their special advisers may have leaked sensitive counter-terrorism details, after the Commons row between Mr Blair and David Cameron, the Tory leader.

Mr Blair was challenged over comments made by the Metropolitan police's deputy assistant commissioner, Peter Clarke, yesterday, in which he suggested - without naming names - that certain individuals, who were trying to "squeeze out some short-term presentational advantage" by leaking details, were putting lives at risk and were beneath contempt.

The police chief referred specifically to the recent investigations in Birmingham, when the press seemed to know about the arrests almost before they took place.

Mr Clegg called on West Midlands police to investigate the leaks and establish whether any criminal offences had occurred, in light of the severity of the claims.

He wrote: "Given the terms of the Official Secrets Act, which prohibits the release of information that 'impedes the prevention or detection of offences or the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders' by a crown servant, it is possible that the circumstances of these leaks have entailed a breach of the act."

Taking a different tack, the Conservatives seized on the fact that Mr Blair failed to give a categorical denial at PMQs that anyone within government had been involved.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, pointed out that the home secretary had previously given assurances to the Conservative party that neither civil servants nor political staff had commented on operational matters relating to counter-terrorism operations.

Earlier today, Mr Blair limited his comments by saying that "as far as I'm aware" no minister, special adviser or civil servant had leaked security information.

Speaking at the dispatch box, Mr Blair denounced the leaks but said that there were no plans for a public inquiry: "The only guarantee I can give is that as far as I'm aware they did not [come from a minister, civil servant or special adviser].

"But let me make it absolutely clear that I completely condemn any leaks of sensitive information, from whatever quarter. But I don't think it is right to leave an allegation suggesting there may be a minister who has done this unless you've got actual evidence that that is so."

Pressed by Mr Cameron about whether he was investigating the leaks within his own camp or was about to do so, Mr Blair said, over Tory jeers: "I am not going to confirm that.

"What I will say is that if there is any evidence at all that people have been engaged deliberately in leaking information of this sort, I can assure you I will take the strongest possible action in respect of whoever it may be."

Mr Cameron responded: "You say you are pretty certain it's not a minister or a special adviser. But if you haven't had a leak inquiry, how on earth can you know?"

The prime minister replied: "If you have evidence that someone has been involved in such a thing I will of course have it properly investigated.

"But what I'm not going to do is have a situation in which you simply make this allegation [and] leave it hanging there without any evidence to back it up whatever. If I was being unkind, I would call that a smear."

Soon afterwards, Mr Davis wrote to the cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell, calling for an inquiry to be set up.

He wrote: "In respective letters to myself and Dominic Grieve, Sir David Normington stated clearly that Home Office civil servants had not commented on operational matters and the home secretary gave unequivocal assurances that his political staff had not briefed the media. However, in the House of Commons today the prime minister refused to reiterate those assurances."

Tory party officials were keen to point out that Mr Blair had triggered 60 inquiries into leaks over the past three years alone when Labour's reputation had been under threat.

These included an investigation into a memo leaked to the Guardian that revealed that Jack Straw was watering down the provisions enshrined in the freedom of information bill.

Fears that government insiders could be responsible for leaking sensitive information emerged after a speech made by Mr Clarke to a Policy Exchange event in which he revealed that "misguided individuals" were betraying sensitive confidences.

"Perhaps they look to curry favour with certain journalists, or to squeeze out some short-term presentational advantage," he said.

"They reveal sources of life-saving intelligence. In the worst cases they put lives at risk. I wonder if they simply do not care."

Last August arrests were made in the West Midlands over an alleged plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim serviceman.

Mr Clarke said that West Midlands police were furious after details of the operation were leaked after the men were arrested.

"On the morning of the arrests, almost before the detainees had arrived at the police stations to which they were being taken for questioning, it was clear that key details of the investigation and the evidence had been leaked," he said.

"This damaged the interview strategy of the investigators, and undoubtedly raised community tensions," Mr Clarke said.

    Lib Dems and Tories round on Blair over anti-terror leaks, G, 25.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2065284,00.html

10.45am

Reid: New department will boost fight against terrorism

Wednesday April 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Hélène Mulholland and agencies

The new department set up to combat terrorism will be "faster, brighter and more agile" than the Home Office, John Reid said today.

The Ministry of Justice, due to open on May 9, will deal with criminal justice and boasts a new Office for Security and Counter-terrorism which will serve as a strategic centre for counter-terrorism.

Countering claims that the decision to split his department will weaken it, Mr Reid told a conference organised by the Royal United Services Institute in London that the move would significantly boost Britain's security.

"It is vital that in the 21st century we have a department concentrating on managing migration, cutting crime and tackling terrorism," he said.

"The new Office for Security and Counter-terrorism will play a pivotal role in this by enabling the Home Office to focus on personal, community and national security.

"It will provide that faster, brighter and more agile response to the terrorist threat through a new drive, cohesion, and by providing a greater strategic capacity to our fight against terrorism."

The new organisation must make better use of "science, innovation, the private sector and academia" to fight terrorism, he added.

Mr Reid has been plagued by a string of high-profile blunders at the department which prompted him to admit to a parliamentary committee that it was not "fit for purpose".

Yesterday, Mr Reid revealed that beefing up the Home Office's counter-terrorism work is expected to cost £15m and Sir David Normington, the permanent secretary, confirmed that the department would recruit 150 extra staff.

Mr Reid also told the Commons all-party home affairs select committee that the maximum time terror suspects could be held without charge would not be extended beyond 28 days unless agreement could be reached across parties.

Only last week, Tony McNulty, the junior Home Office minister, told MPs that he hoped to create a new system that would extend the period suspects could be held without charge.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have expressed their opposition to such a move.

Mr Reid said: "If there is no national consensus then I will not proceed with it."

Meanwhile, the new head of MI5 yesterday briefed Mr Reid, Tony Blair and other cabinet colleagues on the terror threat facing Britain.

Jonathan Evans delivered his briefing at the first meeting of the government's new committee on security and terrorism.

The committee was set up as part of the reorganisation of the Home Office.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said it was "extraordinary" that it had taken more than five years since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, to set up the new committee.

    Reid: New department will boost fight against terrorism, G, 25.4.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2065158,00.html

Al-Qaida thriving despite war on terror - Yard chief

· Group still capable of devastating attacks on UK
· Call for more information from Muslim communities

Vikram Dodd
Guardian
Wednesday April 25, 2007

The head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism command said yesterday that al-Qaida had survived the six-year long "war on terror" launched by President George Bush and Tony Blair, and its central leadership had retained the ability to order devastating attacks on Britain.

Deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, the national counterterrorism coordinator, warned in a lecture last night that terrorists "have momentum" and were on an "inexorable trend to more ambitious and more destructive attack planning".

Mr Clarke was giving a lecture in memory of Colin Cramphorn, the deceased former chief constable of West Yorkshire who was in charge of the force when it was revealed that three of the four bombers behind the attacks on London in July 7 2005 came from his area.

Mr Clarke said his wide-ranging lecture was based on his policing experience and he did not intend it to be political.

He said al-Qaida had weathered the assault launched against it after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001. In his assessment of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, Mr Clarke offered a picture of a formidable organisation. "It is global in origin, reach and ambition. The networks are large, fluid, mobile and incredibly resilient," he said.

"We have seen how al-Qaida has been able to survive a prolonged multinational assault on its structures, personnel and logistics. It has certainly retained its ability to deliver centrally directed attacks here in the UK.

"In case after case, the hand of core al-Qaida can be clearly seen. Arrested leaders or key players are quickly replaced, and disrupted networks will re-form quickly.

"There is no evidence of looking to restrict casualties. There are no warnings given and the evidence suggests that on the contrary, the intention is frequently to kill as many people as possible."

He contrasted al-Qaida with Irish terrorism, saying that republicans had a political agenda that made exploring a negotiated settlement possible, which was not the case with Islamist extremists: "Although perhaps this is not for me to judge, there has not been an obvious political agenda around which meaningful negotiations can be built."

Senior counterterrorism sources say the UK government has not considered negotiating with al-Qaida and Mr Clarke demanded greater community help, warning: "The extremists have a momentum that must be stopped."

He repeated warnings from other senior counterterrorism officials that another attack on the UK was highly likely and that Pakistan had become a popular training ground for camps to equip British-born people to learn the skills and methods to carry out attacks on their own soil.

He dismissed critics who claimed the terrorist threat to the UK was overblown, saying that more than 100 people were awaiting trial for terrorist offences.

Mr Clarke said few convictions had stemmed from information given by Muslim communities: "We must increase the flow of intelligence coming from communities. Almost all of our prosecutions have their origins in intelligence that came from overseas, the intelligence agencies or from technical means [intrusive bugging or video surveillance]. Few have yet originated from what is sometimes called community intelligence."

He stressed the need to build public confidence in the integrity of the police and condemned unauthorised leaks about counterterrorism investigations. "I make no allegations about the source of leaks or about individual cases. What is clear is that there are a number, a small number I am sure, of misguided individuals who betray confidences. Perhaps they look to curry favour with certain journalists, or to squeeze out some short-term presentational advantage ... They reveal sources of life-saving intelligence. In the worst cases they put lives at risk. I wonder if they simply do not care."

Last August arrests were made in the West Midlands over an alleged plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim serviceman. West Midlands police were furious after details of the operation were leaked after the men were arrested: "On the morning of the arrests, almost before the detainees had arrived at the police stations to which they were being taken for questioning, it was clear that key details of the investigation and the evidence had been leaked. This damaged the interview strategy of the investigators, and undoubtedly raised community tensions."

Mr Clarke said more ways were needed to divert potential extremists away from the lure of the al-Qaida ideology, without them getting a criminal record.

    Al-Qaida thriving despite war on terror - Yard chief, G, 25.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2064947,00.html

11.45am update

Six arrested in anti-terror raids

Tuesday April 24, 2007
Guardian
Mark Tran and Vikram Dodd

Anti-terror police today arrested six men on suspicion of inciting others to commit terrorist acts overseas and raising funds for terrorism.

One of the men, Abu Izzadeen, heckled the home secretary, John Reid, when Mr Reid visited east London last year.

Officers from the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, working with local police, arrested the men - aged between 21 and 35 - at five addresses in London and one in Luton early this morning.

Officers stressed that the dawn raids had involved unarmed police, and said the men were being detained at an unnamed police station in central London.

"The arrests form part of a long-term proactive and complex investigation into alleged incitement and radicalisation for the purposes of terrorism, as well as alleged provision of financial support for international terrorism," a police spokesman said.

Scotland Yard said a number of searches were continuing in connection with the investigation.

Its specialist terrorist financing unit has found that most of the alleged terrorist money raised in the UK goes towards supporting and financing insurgents in Iraq.

The six arrested men are believed to be associated with the radical Islamist group al-Ghuraaba, which includes supporters of the alleged extremist Omar Bakri Mohammed, who has now left Britain for Lebanon.

A former spokesman for Mr Bakri, Anjem Choudary, said the arrested men were known to him and were "very decent, practising Muslims who have raised their voices against the government".

Mr Choudary said he thought those detained had been arrested for raising funds during Ramadan in 2004 for what he said were charities supporting people affected by conflicts in Kashmir and Palestine.

"Innocent Muslims are being raided and arrested in high profile raids this morning in Blair's crusade against anyone who speaks up," he said. "This is oppression and pure act of aggression."

    Six arrested in anti-terror raids, G, 24.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2064323,00.html

Terror and the law


Friday April 6, 2007
The Guardian
Leader

Any investigation into terrorism must necessarily be secretive and, at times, intrusive - but that is no reason why it should lapse into illegality. Two examples this week have shown the challenge. The more reassuring one came yesterday, when charges were brought against three men in connection to the July 7 attacks. Peter Clarke, the head of the Met's anti-terrorism branch, said that the case had been assembled from "a complicated jigsaw with thousands of pieces". The investigation was carried out under British law, and the cases will be heard in a British court.

The same cannot be said of the other investigation highlighted this week. The Guardian's report of an MI5 attempt to recruit Jamil el-Banna, a British resident suspected of knowing al-Qaida activists, reveals an inquiry that began with a degree of subtlety but which rapidly descended into crude injustice, with his rendition to Guantánamo Bay, where he is still held.

The circumstances in which Mr el-Banna and another British resident, Bisher al-Rawi - released a week ago today - were snatched during a visit to Gambia, are unclear. To varying degrees, the British security and intelligence services, Gambia and the US share responsibility. What is obvious is that Britain fell far short of the moral, if not legal, duty a country has to protect its residents, even if they (unlike their families) do not hold British citizenship.

The MI5 document printed by the Guardian describes a visit to Mr el-Banna's home in October 2002. The agent, who introduces himself as being from the "mukhaberaat", or security services, reports on a conversation which appeared to be relaxed, frank and inconclusive. He offered Mr el-Banna - who denied any involvement in extremist activity - a choice. "He could continue with his current life" or, if he co-operated with MI5, start a new one with "a new identity, new nationality, money".

As a proposal it reads like something out of Le Carre, but what followed would have shocked even George Smiley. Far from being left alone, or given time, Mr el-Banna has spent almost five years being held without charge in a camp described by Lord Falconer as "a shocking affront to democracy" and by a new Amnesty International report as offering "extreme isolation and sensory deprivation". Nine men with a claim to British residency, including Mr el-Banna, remain there. There is no proper process for assessing and releasing them; Britain has turned down a possible US offer to return the nine, if they are supervised. The government condemns Guantánamo in public but seems content to indulge the US in its extreme abuse of liberty and justice - the values which should underpin its response to terrorism.

    Terror and the law, G, 6.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2051333,00.html

3.45pm update

Three men charged

with July 7 conspiracy

Thursday April 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Mark Oliver


Three men have been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions in connection with the July 7 suicide bombings in London, Scotland Yard said today.

In a statement, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, of the Metropolitan police, said the three men who had been charged were those who had been detained on March 22.

Sadeer Saleem, 26, Mohammed Shakil, 30, and Waheed Ali, 23, who was previously known as Shipon or Chipon Ullah, are accused of conspiring with the four 7/7 suicide bombers.

Susan Hemming, head of the counter terrorism division of the Crown Prosecution Service, said the men had been charged "that between November 1 2004 and June 29 2005 they unlawfully and maliciously conspired" with the London bombers and others "to cause explosions on the Transport for London system and/or tourist attractions in London".

She added: "The allegation is that they were involved in reconnaissance and planning for a plot with those ultimately responsible for the bombings on the 7 July before the plan was finalised."

The decision to charge them had been taken this morning, she said, adding that the investigation had been "extensive and difficult". The three men were due to make an initial court appearance on Saturday.

They are the first to be charged in connection with the attacks which killed 52 people and injured more than 960.

Mr Clarke told reporters at New Scotland Yard that all three of the men were from Beeston, Leeds; Mr Ali had most recently being living in Tower Hamlets, east London. Beeston was home to three of the four suicide bombers, who targeted three Tube trains and a bus in the 2005 attacks.

Mr Clarke said officers had decided it was time to arrest the three suspects because two of them, Mr Ali and Mr Shakil, were about to leave the country two weeks ago from Manchester airport. Mr Saleem was arrested in Beeston.

Mr Clarke, head of the Met's counter-terrorism command, said that he knew "as a fact" that other people "had knowledge" of the plot and said he understood some had "real concerns about the consequences of telling us what you know".

He added: "I also know that some of you have been actively dissuaded from speaking to us. Surely this must stop. The victims of the attacks, and those who will become victims of terrorism in the future, deserve your co-operation and support."

Speaking of the suspects charged today, he said: "We need to know more about their movements, meetings and travel. Who did they meet? Where did they go? But as well as this, who else knew about what was happening? We will find out, it is only a matter of time. It is highly likely that in due course there will be further arrests."

He said that the 21-month investigation into the attacks - the worst on British soil - had been painstaking and detailed and that their aim had been to find "every clue and lead, however minute".

"Our aim was quite simple," he told reporters, "To find out not only who was responsible for setting off the bombs, but also who else was involved. As I said in July 2005, we needed to find out who else knew what was going to happen on July 7. Who encouraged the bombers? Who supported them? Who helped them?"

He said there were still gaps in police knowledge about the bombers, Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shezad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain and Jermaine Lindsay, who all died in the blasts. Police wanted to know more about what they were doing in the weeks and months leading up to the attacks.

Mr Clarke said words could not convey the scale of the 7/7 investigation, which had involved some 19,000 leads and more than 15,000 statements being taken.

He said he knew that the news of the charges would have an impact on some people and "bring back awful memories of that terrible day". He went on: "For others there may be some relief that after such a length of time there is some visible progress in an investigation that, I hope for obvious reasons, has had to be conducted in secret."

Mr Clarke, who said he was not able to take questions from reporters, said the "relentless search" into every detail of the attacks was ongoing by the Metropolitan police and West Yorkshire police.

Ms Hemming said that care must be taken over the reporting of the charges. She told reporters: "These individuals are only accused of this offence and they have a right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that there should be responsible media reporting which should not prejudice the due process of law."

Three men charged with July 7 conspiracy, G, 5.4.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/story/0,,2050966,00.html