The most remarkable thing about yesterday’s verdict in yet another Islamist terrorist court case was the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service has three weeks to decide whether the men should face retrials on the counts on which the jury was hung.This contrasts vividly with the decision to retry the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, and colleague Mark Collett, during the ‘Free Speech Trial’ in 2006. At that trial — where the BNP ‘crime’ was a speech, not a bombing campaign — it took the CPS exactly two minutes to announce that it would be seeking a retrial after the jury was hung.
Yesterday, however, somehow there was no instant announcement in the Islamist terrorist case, and the CPS said “the prosecution is considering a request for a retrial” with regard to the accusations that jets were a target.
So: When patriotic Brits are put on trial for warning about Islamist terrorists, they are instantly prosecuted and re-prosecuted if the jury is hung; but when Islamist terrorists are put on trial for aiming to murder thousands, the CPS goes away and thinks about re-prosecution. Justice for native Britons? We don’t think so.
Consider the gravity of the charges against the Islamists, and then compare them to the ‘crime’ of giving a speech:
Jurors found that the Islamists were members of an east London al Qaida-inspired terror cell that planned to detonate home-made bombs in attacks on British targets including Heathrow airport.
Following a five-month trial the jury failed to reach verdicts on prosecution claims that they were plotting an unprecedented series of suicide bombings on transatlantic airliners.
The three — Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27 — had admitted planning small-scale bomb attacks, but jurors rejected their claims that they did not plan to kill or hurt anyone in the blasts.
The jury could not agree verdicts on whether another four Muslim men — Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, Waheed Zaman, 24, and Umar Islam, 30 — were also involved in the conspiracy to murder. All seven defendants earlier admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance by distributing al Qaida-style videos threatening suicide attacks in Britain.
Jurors found that the mastermind Ali, along with Sarwar and Hussain, intended to murder people using an ingenious form of hydrogen peroxide liquid bomb disguised as a soft drink. Prosecutors said his gang considered national infrastructure targets including gas terminals and oil refineries.
Evidence revealed that Canary Wharf, the Bacton gas terminal pipeline, various airports, the electricity grid and internet providers were studied. Documents also referred to Coryton Oil Refinery, in south Essex, and Fawley Oil Refinery, in Hampshire, and Kingsbury Oil Refinery in Warwickshire.
Police said the plot was drawn up in Pakistan with detailed instructions passed to Ali during frequent trips to its lawless border with Afghanistan. They believe a mystery al Qaida bombmaker is responsible for the ingenious liquid bomb design concealed within 500ml Oasis or Lucozade bottles.
Surveillance teams watched Ali on his return to Britain as he assembled his terror cell, gathered materials and identified targets. Undercover officers looked on as the unemployed former shop worker used cash to purchase a £138,000 second-floor flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow.
They planted a secret bug that revealed it was converted into a bomb factory where Ali met the others to construct the bombs. The flat was also used as a location for Ali and his cell to record suicide videos threatening further attacks against the West. In his video Ali warned the British public to expect “floods of martyr operations” that would leave body parts scattered in the streets.
Ali was watched as he used public phone boxes, mobile phones and anonymous email accounts to keep in touch with mystery terrorist godfathers in Pakistan.
On his arrest, he was found carrying an elaborate and damning blueprint for the plot scrawled in a battered pocket diary. Airport security arrangements and details of flights, including the seven highlighted services, were discovered on a computer memory stick in another pocket
But the jurors could not agree on verdicts on the prosecution’s evidence that Ali intended to target passenger jets flying from London to major North American cities with suicide attacks.
By way of contrast, what was the crime for which the BNP leader was put on trial? Giving a speech which warned that home-grown Islamist terrorists would soon strike in Britain
Tarn Lass
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