Police have arrested a man who was reportedly asked to join the London suicide bombers.The capital's Metropolitan Police said anti-terrorist officers took a 27-year-old man into custody in the Dewsbury area of West Yorkshire.A police spokesman said the suspect was arrested on suspicion of the "commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism".
The arrest was in connection with the investigation into the July 7 bombings, that killed 52 commuters and four suicide attackers, and followed a report in the News of the World newspaper.
Officers have searched two addresses in the Dewsbury area, where suspected suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, had lived.
The newspaper reported that a British Muslim said Khan had asked him to join the bombing mission.
The paper is thought to have passed an interview with the man, said to have had military training in Pakistan, to police.
He
allegedly told the newspaper he met the other suicide bombers -
Mohammad Sadique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19,
and Hasib Hussain, 18 - in Dewsbury after he returned to the UK.
JANUARY
30th
2006
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, whose conduct in the aftermath of the shooting is the subject of an official inquiry, said his force "could have put the record straight" about a number of issues.
It failed to because officers were "transfixed" by the hunt for the four suspects involved in the alleged attempted bombings the previous day.
Early reports suggested that Mr de Menezes had been wearing bulky clothing and that he vaulted a ticket barrier at Stockwell Tube station and ran down an escalator to escape police firearms officers.
These were not contradicted until three weeks later when documents leaked to ITV News revealed that the 27-year-old had walked into the station at a normal pace and even paused to pick up a free newspaper. He was also clad only in a light denim jacket.
The family of the innocent Brazilian later wrote to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to complain that this misinformation had been allowed to circulate after his death. Their letter of complaint also named Sir Ian and accused him of having misled them and the public.
A second IPCC inquiry, known as Stockwell Two, is now examining those allegations, but in an interview Sir Ian acknowledged that Scotland Yard had made a "bad mistake" in not correcting the false reports.
His comments were made in an interview with The Guardian in November, but only published for the first time ahead of the first anniversary of his commissionership later this week.
Sir Ian told the newspaper: "Clearly the Met could have taken the decision on the Saturday when we recognised that we had killed an innocent man, we could have put the record straight. Although we did put the record straight by saying he wasn't connected, we didn't put the record straight about all the issues around him, jumping over barriers and heavy coats and so on...
"In a terrible way, the Met was transfixed on other things. It was transfixed on: where are these bombers? And therefore, in a dreadful way, we didn't see the significance of that. That was our mistake. It was. It was a bad mistake."
Instead, in a move described by the victim's family as "shameful," the Metropolitan Police force will be prosecuted under health and safety laws, more usually used to resolve minor incidents in the workplace.
It is not shameful at all. There were mistakes made by at least 3 different people at different times, all of them innocent, though the soldier who went for a pee when he should have been watch with his eyes pealed set the ball rolling. None of the other errors were a dereliction of duty, or negligence, or overreaching the law. The results were tragic, but bringing criminal charges against three or evn more people would have made sense or had the slightest chance of succeeding. All it would have done would have risked exposing security service methods. So lets have no more hypocritical rubbish from those who pretend they could ever make an innocent mistake that might have tragic consequences. These have happened throughout history and will happen again in the future. The 'Health and Safety' prosecution is in fact apt and can be a forum in which the legitimate concerns of the public about the conflicting needs of public and personal security can be addressed. If the public or the victim's family are too stupid to understand that, bad luck.A first hearing last month was adjourned at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court after police lawyers requested extra time.
The family of de Menezes has described the decision to prosecute police under health and safety laws as "ridiculous".
De Menezes was shot seven times in the head after he boarded a London underground train on July 22 last year.
Two weeks earlier, four suicide bombers had killed 52 commuters on three trains and a bus in London.
The Crown Prosecution Service said in July there was insufficient evidence to convict any individual police officer over de Menezes's death.
But it said "operational errors" indicated there had been a breach of duties owed to non-employees under the Health and Safety Act.
.[END OF SKY NEWS ITEM]Security sources say the situation has never been so grim, said BBC home affairs correspondent Margaret Gilmore.
They believe the network is now operating a cell structure in the UK - like the IRA did - and sees the 7 July bomb attacks "as just the beginning".
Each cell has a leader, a quartermaster dealing with weapons, and volunteers.
According to our correspondent, each cell works on separate, different plots, with masterminds controlling several different cells.
Those involved in the cells were often aware they were being followed and so were meeting in public spaces.
In addition, training is taking place in the UK and Pakistan.
"They set up groups a bit like Boy Scouts or Boys'
Brigade... totally legitimate"
BBC home affairs correspondent Margaret Gilmore
It was thought that five years ago al-Qaeda was a number of "loosely-connected organisations" with common aims, but it is now more organised, she said.
Security officials are concerned the group is targeting universities and the community, and are "less worried" about mosques, she added.
The network is targeting men in their late teens and early 20s, according to our correspondent.
"They set up groups a bit like Boy Scouts or Boys' Brigade... totally legitimate.
"Those who are particularly interested they start giving religious indoctrination.
"Then those who are very interested they start introducing to political teachings, anti-Western rhetoric.
Bonding sessions
"And those who are still interested they then start giving technical training.
"They also start sending them on bonding sessions to things like white-water rafting.
"You end up with a small team of people - the cell is prepared.
"A lot of this is happening outside London," our correspondent added.
Joint regional offices of MI5 intelligence gatherers and anti-terrorist police officers have been set up in Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield.
"The leadership of al-Qaeda does appear to ... be
more coherent and organised than had been thought in recent years"
Gordon Corera
BBC security correspondent
BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said the view was Britain was particularly vulnerable because "it may be easier for al-Qaeda to strike the UK than other targets".
He said these views were "based on activity they are actually seeing. Plots they're disrupting, trials which might be coming up soon".
"There is hard evidence behind it, rather than just theories," said our correspondent.
"That's based partly on what they are seeing, in terms of the types of activity, and partly based on the coincidence, that al-Qaeda's leadership is based in the tribal areas of Pakistan where there are links to the UK and flows of people going back and forwards.
"It makes it easier to make the UK a target than the other countries it might wish to target."
The network also appeared to be better organised, he continued.
"The leadership of al-Qaeda does appear to have been re-grouping and to be more coherent and organised than had been thought in recent years.
"The view is it clearly was an organised group before 9/11, but the campaign in Afghanistan disrupted that leadership very heavily.
"It is no longer about looking for a needle in a
haystack"
Crispin Black
Security analyst
"But in recent years, particularly in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leadership has been able to re-group and re-organise itself.
"In doing so it's able to open up channels of communication, contact, recruitment and planning around the world, and operate those in a more coherent fashion than maybe we were seeing three years' ago."
However, intelligence analyst Crispin Black said another attack in the UK "was not inevitable", citing the UK's "considerable successes against the IRA".
"We still have that expertise and training present within our military forces and intelligence," he said.
"It is no longer about looking for a needle in a haystack. We have some pretty good clues and information on where we should be looking."
A Home Office spokeswoman referred to a recent speech by Home Secretary John Reid in which he referred to the now "seamless threat" of radicalisation.
This was a challenge they expected to "last a generation", she said. |
PROFILES OF THE GUILTY
|
Jurors in the year-long Old Bailey trial heard of plans to target a shopping centre, nightclub and the gas network with a giant fertiliser bomb.
The judge, Sir Michael Astill, said the men, all British citizens, had "betrayed their country".
It has also been revealed some of the plotters met two of the 7 July London suicide bombers.
Mohammad Sidique Khan was spotted on four occasions in 2004 with at least one of the fertiliser bomb conspirators. At one point MI5 officers followed Khan back to his home in Leeds but no further action was taken.
In the wake of the convictions both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have both called for an independent inquiry into the 7 July link.
|
IN HIS OWN WORDS
I was requested by Omar Khyam that they wanted to get
trained and come back to the UK and do like, you know Plotter Salahuddin Amin telling police about explosives training Amin speaks of plot |
The call for an inquiry was echoed by Graham Foulkes, whose son David died in the 7 July attacks. He said an inquiry was needed so "lessons could be learned".
Later, in the House of Commons, the Home Secretary, John Reid, ruled out an inquiry, saying it would divert the efforts of those in the security services who were so busy countering the terrorist threat.
But he said a committee of MPs would analyse the lessons learned from the fertiliser bomb plot trial.
The new director general of MI5, Jonathan Evans, issued a statement in which he denied being "complacent" and added: "The attack on 7 July in London was a terrible event. 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."
He added: "The Security Service will never have the capacity to investigate everyone who appears on the periphery of every operation."
|
This was not a group of youthful
idealists. They were trained,
dedicated, ruthless terrorists who were obviously planning to carry out
an attack against the British public Peter Clarke |
Britain's top anti-terrorist policeman, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said: "This was not a group of youthful idealists. They were trained, dedicated, ruthless terrorists who were obviously planning to carry out an attack against the British public."
Police smashed the plot in 2004 after MI5 had watched an Islamist extremist network with links across the world.
The link with 7 July was deliberately kept from the Old Bailey jury for fear of prejudicing their deliberations on the fertiliser bomb plot. The trial was one of the biggest and most expensive in British criminal history.
Al-Qaeda link
The fertiliser bomb plot investigation linked back to senior al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including one who was detained by US forces in Iraq at the weekend.
Omar Khyam, 25, from Crawley, West Sussex, was found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January 2003 and 31 March 2004.
Also convicted were Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 23, also of Crawley; Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire; Anthony Garcia, 24, of Barkingside, east London.
The judge told them: "You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity."
He also warned them: "All of you may never be released. It's not a foregone conclusion."
Two other men, Nabeel Hussain and Shujah Mahmood, were found not guilty.
The Old Bailey heard the plotters had come together over a number of years.
|
TARGETS DISCUSSED
Bluewater shopping centre
Utilities network
Ministry of Sound nightclub
Parliament
Football stadium
|
The men had started out sympathetic to Muslim causes around the world - but the key plotters decided that violence was the answer as they came together for secret military training camps in Pakistan.
Back in Britain, they discussed various schemes, including targeting the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent on a busy Saturday or the Ministry of Sound nightclub in central London.
They also talked of attacking the gas or electricity network and Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament.
Tip-off
The group had bought 600kg of ammonium nitrate from an agricultural merchants and kept it at a storage unit in Hanwell, west London.
This fertiliser was to be the key component in the massive bomb - similar to those used in other terrorism attacks around the world.
But unbeknown to the men, some of them were already on MI5's radar while, at the same time, staff at the storage unit tipped off police.
They replaced the ammonium nitrate with a harmless substance and kept the group under surveillance before swooping in a series of raids.
Key witness
The Old Bailey heard the defendants had at least two fellow conspirators.
|
TRIAL FACTS
3,644 witness statements taken
105 prosecution witnesses
Trial lasted for 13 months
Jury was out for record 27 days
|
One of them, an American called Mohammed Junaid Babar, admitted his role in the plot after being arrested by the FBI and became a vital prosecution witness.
The other was Mohammed Momin Khawaja, awaiting trial in Canada.
The jury deliberated for 27 days, a record in British criminal history.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said the deal allowing Babar to testify was unprecedented in British courts.
Outside court a solicitor read out a statement on behalf of Nabeel Hussain. He said: " I have always maintained my innocence of the allegations against me. I have never been an extremist or believed in extremism... I am so glad this ordeal is over."
A special edition of Panorama, focusing on the failure of MI5 to follow up on Mohammad Sidique Khan after he was logged during the surveillance operation, will be broadcast at 1900BST on Monday.
|
|
By Peter Taylor BBC Panorama |
The public has never been told the full story about the links between the fertiliser bomb plot, known as Operation Crevice, and two of the 7 July suicide bombers.
But was there an opportunity to identify them in advance? Did the security services make a serious mistake and was an opportunity missed? Panorama believes the evidence clearly indicates there was - but that it does not necessarily mean that the attacks could have been prevented.
The missed opportunity happened during an MI5 surveillance operation on 2 and 3 February 2004 - 17 months before the London bombings. The officers were watching Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the fertiliser bomb plot.
|
2 FEB 2004: FIRST SURVEILLANCE
1: MI5 team watching Omar Khyam in Crawley
spot him in a car with Khan and Shehzad Tanweer.
2: MI5 tails Khan and Tanweer after they leave
Crawley. Officers photograph Khan at M1 Toddington Services,
Bedfordshire.
3: Khan reaches West Yorkshire. Car seen
parking outside family home in
Dewsbury. Checks reveal car registered to Khan's wife. No further
action taken.
|
By February 2004, they had stepped up their surveillance - but Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch were not yet involved as at the time it was a purely MI5 intelligence gathering operation.
On 2 February, MI5 officers noted two strangers talking to Khyam. They would later turn out to be Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - two of the London suicide bombers.
I have seen MI5's surveillance log - and what it records happened next. The details were never revealed in court because of reporting restrictions. According to the log, a Honda car, registration R480 CCA, was seen in Langley Parade, Crawley. Omar was in the passenger seat and the driver was Khan.
MI5 ran a check on ownership of the vehicle. The name meant nothing at the time. It was registered in the name of Khan's wife.
Although they did not know who he was, the officers followed the car after it left Crawley, not knowing where it was going. After Khyam was dropped off, Khan drove onto the M1 and headed north.
When it stopped for petrol at Toddington services, MI5's log states that photographs were taken of the passengers. MSK was covertly snapped in the vicinity of Burger King at the entrance to the services' refreshment area.
Was the photograph clear enough to identify him? The intelligence services say the quality was very poor. But other sources who have seen it told me that Khan was identifiable. Panorama asked to see the photograph, but the request was refused. We understand that one other photograph, said to be of marginally inferior quality, was subsequently taken of MSK going into an undisclosed internet café.
Followed to Leeds
According to MI5's log, officers followed the Honda for a further 150 miles to Leeds. It notes the addresses and locations where some of the passengers got out.
Within weeks, the investigation into Khyam had become a major operation, leading to arrests in Canada, the UK and Pakistan.
In June 2004, the intelligence services again checked out the car. This time, they found it had been re-registered in the name of 'Siddeque Khan'. Again, at the time, the name meant nothing.
In their investigation into the background to the 7 July London bombings, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) gave MI5 a clean bill of health.
It confirmed that Khan and Tanweer had appeared on the radar of an earlier investigation - meaning Operation Crevice. But it concluded: "the decisions not to give greater investigative priority to these two individuals were understandable".
But the ISC was either never given the full details of the 2 February surveillance operation or was informed but chose to omit key facts - details which might have fuelled demands for the public or independent inquiry the government has resisted.
While the ISC's report was crafted to avoid prejudicing the Crevice trial, it could have alluded to the 2 February surveillance operation without linking it to Omar Khyam.
MI5 defence
MI5's position is that neither Khan nor Tanweer were under Security Service or police surveillance.
But Conservative shadow Home Secretary David Davis had a different view - and has called for a full independent inquiry.
"That clearly is not true," he told Panorama. "It's self evidently a surveillance operation. They're being followed, they're keeping somebody under observation, they're making a note of where they're going, they're presumably making a note of the car itself, and the times, and who's there.
"All those things amount to a surveillance operation. They let somebody to go off surveillance who subsequently turned out to be a suicide bomber."
More sightings
The Old Bailey heard that Khan and Tanweer were spotted with Khyam on three more occasions - although both the police and MI5 say they were still not identified by name.
|
OTHER 2004 SURVEILLANCE OF MSK
1: 21 February: Khan logged getting into Omar
Khyam's bugged car; Khan
recorded asking Khyam if he is "a terrorist". Khan joins group
discussion at house in Crawley, attended by the alleged detonator
designer.
2: 28
February: Khan joins Khyam at 0900 for trip from Crawley to
Wellingborough, Northants. Tanweer also in the car. At destination,
they use internet café and then drive to Slough by 2300.
3: 23
March: Khan and Tanweer go to Khyam's Slough flat. Bugged conversation
on light-hearted themes, but also discussions of fraud.
|
It never told them about the Honda, its registration number, the name of its owner, the addresses and places where the passengers had got out or its final destination.
Nor did it show them the photograph of the 'stranger' covertly taken at Toddington services.
It never asked local West Yorkshire Police Special Branch officers if they knew anything about the individuals or the addresses and, if they didn't, to try and find out, given concerns about the cell they had been seen associating with.
There is however a tantalising hint of what the ISC knew amongst the conclusions to its report.
"The Security Service and Special Branches [need to] come together in a combined and coherent way to tackle the home grown threat," said its report. "We are concerned that more was not done sooner."
|
My service has
never been complacent - the attack on London was a
terrible event ... the sense of disappointment will always be with us.
Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5 |
So why weren't the leads followed up?
Operation Crevice led to investigations into 55 suspects, with only 15 of them thought to be directly connected to the bomb plot. Khan was not one of these. One bugged conversation focused on fraudulent fund raising, possibly for Al Qaeda's coffers - but there was no indication Khan himself was planning to bomb the UK. The Security Service was looking at up to 50 terrorist networks in the UK.
The most pressing and potentially deadly plot, also uncovered in 2004 amid massive pressures on resources, led to the jailing of Dhiren Barot for 40 years last November for plotting mayhem in the UK.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, National Coordinator for Terrorist Investigations, told Panorama about the logistical challenge of running surveillance - explaining how resources are the crucial factor.
"An average surveillance team is perhaps 15 to 20 people strong," he said. "In order to keep one person under 24 hour surveillance you'll need a minimum two, perhaps three, surveillance teams for each person. Three surveillance teams could be anything up to 60 people."
Today, as the Crevice plotters face prison, it's believed there are over 200 networks still under investigation.
A genuine threat?
However, the agencies say there was another reason why Khan was not a priority target.
When he was subsequently spotted three times in the company of Omar, the bugged conversations indicated they were not talking about attacking the UK but about ripping off banks, companies and financial institutions.
According to Peter Clarke, the money was destined for Al Qaeda's coffers and the conversations indicated that Khan was planning to leave for Pakistan and possibly to fight in Afghanistan.
Indeed, in one conversation Khan, who was expecting to become a father, was worried about saying goodbye to his baby.
Could 7/7 have been stopped? Had MI5 brought West Yorkshire Special Branch into their confidence at the time, MSK could have been identified, watched, followed and fed into the wider intelligence picture over the following seventeen months before he launched the fatal attacks.
West Yorkshire police say the first they knew that MSK was the leader of the London bombers was after 52 people had died.
Panorama reporter: Peter Taylor
Producer: Howard Bradburn
Editor: Sandy Smith
By DAVID RISING, Associated Press Writer
Investigators worked Wednesday to untangle the ties between the eight suspects arrested in connection to the failed car bombing attacks in Britain and were hunting down others believed involved on the periphery of the plot.
British authorities have refused to release many details on the suspects, including whether they were on any watch lists, but have indicated they believe the plot may have links to al-Qaida.
On Wednesday, though, the Press Association news agency reported that some of the suspects had previously come to the attention of British security agencies.
While the information held on database did not alert authorities to the attacks, it did help police to round up suspects quickly, the agency reported, quoting unidentified government sources.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Tuesday that none of the eight suspects was on any American lists that identify potential terror suspects.
The eight people held include one doctor from Iraq and two from India. There is a physician from Lebanon and a Jordanian doctor and his medical assistant wife. Another doctor and a medical student are thought to be from the Middle East.
All employees of the United Kingdom's National Health Service, some worked together as colleagues at hospitals in England and Scotland, and experts and officials say the evidence points to the plot being hatched after they met in Britain, rather than overseas.
"To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area — I think that's a planning impossibility," said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence officer now at London's Chatham House think tank.
"A much more likely scenario is they were here together, they discovered that they shared some common ideology, and then they decided to act on this while here in the UK," he said.
No one has been charged in the plot in which two car bombs failed to explode in central London early Friday and two men rammed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas cylinders into the entrance of Glasgow International Airport and set it on fire the following day.
The family of one suspect — Muhammad Haneef, a 27-year-old doctor from India arrested late Monday in Brisbane, Australia — professed his innocence.
"He has been detained unnecessarily. He is innocent," Qurat-ul-ain, Haneef's mother, told The Associated Press in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.
Officials in Australia, where Haneef worked at a hospital, have noted publicly that he had a one-way ticket when he was arrested at the airport.
Sumaiya, Haneef's sister, said Wednesday that he was coming to Bangalore from Australia to see his daughter who was born a week ago. Sumaiya uses one name.
"He called us before leaving (Australia). We came to know about his detention through media," Sumaiya said. "He is a responsible citizen of the country and the Indian government should help us get him back. His aim has been to be a good doctor."
Investigators believe the main plotters have been rounded up, though others involved on the periphery, including at least one British-born suspect, were still being hunted, a British government security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the details.
British-born Muslims behind the bloody 2005 London transit bombings and others in thwarted plots here have been linked to terror training camps and foreign radicals in Pakistan, and the official said Pakistan, India and several other nations were asked to check possible links with the suspects in the latest attacks.
The educational achievements of the suspects in the car bomb attempts is in sharp contrast to the men that carried out the deadly July 7 transit bombings two years ago. The ringleader of that attack, Mohammed Siddique Khan, had a degree in business studies, but with low marks, and his three fellow suicide bombers had little or no higher education.
In the current case, Haneef worked in 2005 at Halton Hospital near Liverpool in northern England, hospital spokesman Mark Shone said.
Another Indian doctor, aged 26, arrested late Saturday in Liverpool, worked at the same hospital, Shone confirmed, but refused to divulge his name.
A third suspect, Mohammed Jamil Asha, a 26-year-old doctor from Jordan of Palestinian heritage, was arrested Saturday with his wife, Marwa Asha, 27, who was identified in British media reports as a medical assistant. He worked at North Staffordshire Hospital, near the Midlands town of Newcastle-under-Lyme.
A doctor at Royal Alexandra Hospital in Glasgow, who refused to give his name, said he recognized Asha as a doctor who kept an office there — the same hospital where another suspect, Bilal Talal Abdul Samad Abdulla, worked.
According to friends of Abdulla's family in Iraq, the 27-year-old doctor came to Britain after graduating from medical school in Baghdad. He was a passenger in the Jeep Cherokee that rammed into the Glasgow airport.
The Jeep's driver — identified by staff at Royal Alexandra Hospital as a Lebanese doctor named Khalid Ahmed — was in critical condition at that hospital from burns suffered in the attack. Police would not confirm his identity.
Investigators believe the same men who parked the explosives-laden cars in London may have also driven the blazing SUV in Glasgow, the British security official said.
The final two suspects, ages 25 and 28, were arrested by police Sunday at Royal Alexandra Hospital. Staff said one was a medical student and the other a junior doctor, without giving their names. British media said they were from Saudi Arabia, but police refused to comment.
___
Associated Press writers Rob Harris in Runcorn, England; David Stringer in London; Ben McConville, in Glasgow, Scotland; Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington; and Shafika Mattar and Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.
Three men have been found guilty of a plot to set off bombs on London's transport network on July 21, 2005.
Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, Yassin Omar, 26, and Ramzi Mohammed, 25, have been convicted of conspiracy to murder.
The jury of nine women and three men at Woolwich Crown Court have yet to reach majority verdicts on the three remaining defendants in the trial.
The six were accused of taking part in the plot to detonate rucksack bombs exactly two weeks after the 7/7 attacks which killed 52 people.
The terror cell attempted to detonate hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour bombs covered in shrapnel on tube trains and a bus.
Their murderous plan only failed at the last moment because of problems with the home-made explosives, hot weather, or mere "good fortune", Woolwich Crown Court heard.
On trial at Woolwich Crown Court are Ibrahim, of Stoke Newington, north London, Omar, of New Southgate, north London, Hussain Osman, 28, of no fixed address, Mohammed, of North Kensington, west London, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, of no fixed address, and Adel Yahya, 24, of High Road, Tottenham, north London.
Just three months after being granted a British passport, Ibrahim - the cell's "emir" or leader - travelled to Pakistan in December 2004 to learn how to carry out a terrorist attack.
He was there at exactly the same time as July 7 ring leader Mohammed Siddique Khan and his fellow suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer.
In April 2005, preparations for the July 21 plot began in earnest.
The terror cell began buying the first components of their home-made explosive devices, including 440 litres of hydrogen peroxide purchased at its highest commercially available concentration.
In New Southgate, north London, Omar's one-bedroom flat became the "bomb factory" where the men spent hours boiling the chemical to make it more readily explosive.
On July 21, Ibrahim, Omar and Mohammed met in the early hours at Mohammed's flat where they mixed, by hand, the peroxide with chapatti flour and stuck nuts and screws onto the plastic mixture containers to cause maximum injury.
The devices were rigged-up with a detonator and a battery and the three set out with their lethal load.
The Metropolitan Police has been convicted of breaching health and safety laws over the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes.
The force has been fined fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £385,000 costs by trial judge Mr Justice Henriques.
Mr de Menezes, 27, died following a "catastrophic" series of errors in the operation which ended when he was shot seven times by specialist firearms officers at Stockwell Tube station after being mistaken for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman.
Prosecutors at the Old Bailey set out 19 alleged failings in the police operation in the hours leading up to the shooting on July 22, 2005.
The jury convicted the force on the second day of its deliberations with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair in court to hear the verdict.
The force now faces an unlimited fine but has indicated it will appeal.
In a rider to the verdict, the jury cleared the officer in charge of the operation which led to the shooting, Cressida Dick of personal responsibility.
The foreman told the court: "In reaching this verdict the jury attaches no personal culpability to Commander Dick."
Ronald Thwaites QC, representing the Met, had told the jury Mr de Menezes was acting in an "aggressive and threatening manner" when challenged by officers.
But campaigners reacted angrily to the way police defended the case, accusing them of a "sickening" attempt to blacken Mr de Menezes's name.
There was also a bitter courtroom battle over prosecution claims that a composite image of the Brazilian victim and Osman, produced by the defence, had been doctored to make them look more alike.
The trial and investigation is estimated to have cost around
£3.5 million in public money.
see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7069796.stm
TWO THINGS ALONE CAUSED THE SHOOTING:
1. THE MAN SUPPOSED TO PHOTOGRAPH JEAN CHARLES AS HE CAME OUT OF HIS
FLAT WAS OFF HAVING A PEE
2. THE FIREARMS SQUAD WAS HELD UP IN TRAFFIC JUST ENOUGH TO CAUSE THE
OPERATIONS CONTROL TO FIRST ORDER AN UNARMED ARREST AND THEN STOP IT
JUST TOO LATE TO PREVENT HIM ENTERING THE STATION.
PERSONALLY I THINK ALL THOSE PRESENT DID THEIR JOB APART FROM THE GUY
WHO WENT FOR A SLASH. HE SHOULD HAVE HAD BACKUP OR A BOTTLE TO PEE IN.
WE DON'T HAVE THIS STUFF PROPERLY FUNDED BUT IT's NOT THE
COMMISSIONER'S FAULT. THERE ARE A LOT OF DEMANDS ON GOVERMENT
EXPENDITURE AND TERRORISM IS A RAPIDLY MOVING TARGET ON WHICH TO AIM
RESOURCES WHICH TAKE A LOT OF SET-UP TIME.
Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has won a vote of confidence at a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority.
The vote followed three turbulent weeks for the UK's most senior officer after his force was found guilty of health and safety failures at the Old Bailey.
The Metropolitan Police has been criticised for endangering the public after innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by armed officers in July 2005.
In the vote, 15 members supported Sir Ian, seven members voted against him and one person abstained.
Moments before the vote, Sir Ian insisted he was a "man of honour" and would have resigned if he believed it was necessary.
He said: "Although it has not been an easy experience, I welcome the fact we have had this motion and to my surprise I welcome the fact we have had it in public.
"I am grateful for what has been said. I have not enjoyed hearing all of it but what I hope now is that it ends months of speculation."
Speaking about recent newspaper coverage, he added: "I am a man of honour. If I believed what had happened in this case was appropriate for the resignation of the Commissioner, I would have done. I would not have offered my resignation. I would have just resigned.
"At the end of this, I am not a lame duck commissioner. I am not in the position of being in office but not in power.
"I'm in office, I will be in power with your help and what I really would hope is that all members of all parties will now seek ways to ensure we can work together as a service and an authority."
Cdr John McDowall will take over from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke as national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations.
He will also lead the Metropolitan Police's counter-terrorism unit SO15.
Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said the £125,000-a-year job "was one of the most demanding posts in UK policing".
Sir Ian said the job was "hugely challenging", but Londoners should be "reassured" that Cdr McDowall had the knowledge and experience needed to do it.
Met Police Authority chair Len Duvall said Cdr McDowall was chosen for "his display of operation leadership".
Born in 1957, Cdr McDowall joined the Met in 1980. He has served as deputy to the national co-ordinator of terrorist investigations since January 2005.
He told the recent health and safety trial into Mr de Menezes death that he still thinks every day about what could have been done differently in that case.
The Brazilian electrician was shot dead in 2005 by police who mistook him for a terrorist after the London bombings.
The independent police watchdog had cleared 11 of the 15 officers involved, and has now ruled the other four senior officers will face no further action.
They included commanding officer Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick.
A Brazilian government statement said: "The foreign ministry expresses its unhappiness with the decision of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) which absolves four senior officers involved in the death of the Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes."
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Sadly we have come to expect
this from the IPCC - they have done
nothing to hold the police to account for the killing of an innocent
man Vivian Figuierdo |
BBC correspondent Tim Hirsch in Sao Paulo said the statement went on to say that the government would continue to support Mr de Menezes's family, and to offer them every conceivable assistance.
Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot seven times in the head in Stockwell Tube underground station in London, two weeks after the London bombings in July 2005 that killed 52 people.
Mr de Menezes's cousin said the IPCC decision was "a scandal" and should have been delayed until after the inquest.
Vivian Figuierdo said: "It is entirely premature for the IPCC to do this before an inquest where vital evidence about the actions of these officers could come to light.
"Sadly we have come to expect this from the IPCC - they have done nothing to hold the police to account for the killing of an innocent man."
'No personal culpability'
Ms Dick was the commanding officer on 22 July 2005 when Mr de Menezes was killed.
The three other senior officers were identified as Silver, Trojan 84 and Trojan 80.
In November, the Met Police force was found guilty of breaching health and safety laws over the shooting.
But the Old Bailey jury added a rider to its verdict to say that Ms Dick bore "no personal culpability" for what went wrong.
The IPCC considered whether she was responsible for failures in the planning or management of the operation that amounted to a disciplinary offence, but decided she was not.
In a statement, it said: "The IPCC cannot foresee any circumstances in which new evidence might emerge which would cause any disciplinary tribunal to disregard the jury's rider."
The watchdog said that as the responsibilities of Ms Dick and the other three officers were "intertwined", it could not see how a tribunal could attach personal blame to them but not to her.
A Met Police spokesman said the shooting was "a matter of deep regret", but added: "We are pleased by this move forward and for these officers and their families who have faced much uncertainty."
Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman will give evidence via video link from prison.
They are serving sentences of at least 40 years each for conspiracy to murder.
The men tried to detonate explosives on three Tube trains and a bus, two weeks after 52 people were killed in similar attacks. But the bombs did not go off.
The case, which is expected to last two days, is being heard by Sir Igor Judge, Mr Justice Forbes and Mr Justice Mackay at the Court of Appeal's criminal division.
'Elaborate hoax'
George Carter-Stephenson QC, for Ibrahim - who was said to be the ringleader of the conspiracy, said there were two grounds for appeal.
He said the trial judge had "erred in law" with regard to Ibrahim's right to legal advice and representation in his "safety" interviews with police - emergency interviews conducted on the grounds of public safety.
He also argued the judge "erred in law" when he ruled Ibrahim's lawyer could not ask questions or call evidence about a late confession from his co-accused Hussain Omar.
Mr Carter-Stephenson said the four men had maintained the 21 July events were "an elaborate hoax designed to protest against and draw attention to Britain's role in the attack upon and occupation of Iraq".
He said Ibrahim argued the explosive devices, which were carried in rucksacks, had been made to look realistic, but had flaws deliberately built into them "to ensure that the main charge of each of those devices would not detonate".
On 21 July 2005, the four men tried to detonate rucksacks carrying explosives on three London Underground trains at Shepherd's Bush, Oval and Warren Street station - as well as a bus in Hackney Road. None of the devices exploded.
It came two weeks after the 7 July bombings on three Tube trains and a bus which killed 52 people and injured more than 770. The four bombers were also killed.
A fifth man, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, who admitted conspiracy to cause explosions and was jailed in November for 33 years, will seek permission to appeal against his sentence. His case is expected to be heard on Thursday.
Some of the police staking out the home of Jean Charles de Menezes did not have a picture of the real suspect they were looking for, an inquest has heard.
Several surveillance officers watching Mr de Menezes' London flat saw only a poor image of would-be bomber Hussain Osman at a briefing, jurors were told.
Michael Mansfield QC said better images existed but had not been used.
Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead in July 2005 by police in London who mistook him for Osman.
Mr Mansfield, who represents the de Menezes family, told the hearing how surveillance officers were shown a passport-style picture of Osman recovered from a gym card found in his unexploded rucksack after the 21 July attempted suicide bombings.
Three other torn-up images of Osman and his wife were also found, he said.
Strategy
Mr de Menezes was killed when he boarded a train at Stockwell Tube station in south London after firearms officers mistook him for Osman the day after Osman and three other men had failed in their bombing attempts.
Mr Mansfield went on to question deputy assistant commissioner John McDowall, who was responsible for developing the strategy to capture the men behind the attempted 21 July attacks.
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THE MENEZES KILLING
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"Were you aware that, in fact, some of them were out and about on patrol as it were, as surveillance, without a photograph at all. Do you know that?"
Mr McDowall replied: "No, I was not aware of that."
Mr Mansfield continued: "I mean, that does not help does it, when you know about the difficulties of positive identification, if you do not even have a copy of the photograph with you and you have only seen it back at a briefing?
"That is not exactly best practice, is it?"
Mr McDowall replied: "No, sir, no."
'Omissions'
Mr Mansfield went on to accuse Mr McDowell of a series of failings, including taking strategic decisions "in a vacuum" without considering what could be achieved by firearms and surveillance colleagues.
He also said officers watching the Scotia Road flats had not been told clearly what do do if anyone emerged.
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I think, there probably are
things that I could have done but for whatever reason at that time I
did not think of it John McDowall Met Police deputy assistant commissioner |
Mr Mansfield asked: "Has that ever occurred to you that, in fact, there are omissions by you that really, had you followed up - and a large number of things - the whole scenario might have been different?"
Mr McDowall responded: "I do not accept that. I think that, with benefit of hindsight, one does look back at what one has or has not done and, clearly, I think, there probably are things that I could have done but for whatever reason at that time I did not think of it."
But he said there were "certain aspects" that could have been done differently when preparing the manhunt strategy.
'Split-second decision'
Mr McDowall went on to tell the courtroom at the Oval cricket ground that while he hoped it would not happen again, it was "entirely feasible" a similar tragedy could occur "just with the way circumstances unravel themselves".
On Monday - the first day of the 12-week inquest into Mr de Menezes' death - jurors were told firearms officers made a split-second decision to kill him.
The two firearms officers - identified only as Charlie Two and Charlie 12 - will give evidence in public for the first time later in the inquest.
The jury will consider whether or not Mr de Menezes was unlawfully killed.
There have been five inquiries relating to the death and its aftermath, including a criminal trial.
In 2007, an Old Bailey jury found the Metropolitan Police guilty of breaching health and safety laws, after hearing about the events leading up to Mr de Menezes being shot.