NYT : British Plot Suspects Are Arraigned in Court

British Plot Suspects Are Arraigned in Court

By ALAN COWELL | August 22, 2006

LONDON, Aug 22 — A British court today began arraigning the people who have been arrested and charged in connection with a suspected plot to blow up United States-bound airliners.

Eleven of the 23 people arrested in the case were charged on Monday; the first four of them to appear before a judge today were all ordered held in custody. Prosecutors expect to arraign the rest of the 11 before the end of the day.

Prosecutors said Monday in filing charges that investigators had found “martyrdom videos” and bomb-making materials in a far-reaching search of homes, cars, woodland and other locations.

At least 8 of the 11 charged on Monday were thought to form a hard core of bombers who planned to assemble liquid-based explosives on board airplanes and detonate them, they said.

Of the 12 detainees who have not yet been charged, one, a woman who was not identified, is to be freed, authorities said. The rest are being held under British counterterrorism laws that allow up to 28 days of detention without charges, said Susan Hemming, a lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service.

The scene at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court in central London was one of heavy security today, with the suspects arriving under heavy guard.

The decision to press formal charges followed days of widening public skepticism about the true extent of the suspected plot, first disclosed on Aug. 10, when the police warned that conspirators had planned to commit mass murder on what one officer called an “unimaginable scale.”

The information disclosed Monday gave a sense of the scope of the investigation, beginning with months of surveillance that produced “highly significant video and audio recordings” before the Aug. 10 arrests, said Peter Clarke, the head of London’s anti-terrorism police.

Since then, he said, the police have searched “69 houses, flats and business premises, vehicles and open spaces” and recovered 400 computers, 200 cellphones and 8,000 data storage devices such as memory sticks and DVD’s.

The aim in offering such detail at the news conference on Monday — at which no questions were permitted — seemed twofold: to give the public a glimpse into the kind of evidence that was being amassed and to offset charges that the police had overreacted to a threat.

But the credibility of the allegations will not be tested until the accused are taken before a jury, in a trial that is not expected to begin for at least two years.

Ms. Hemming said 8 of the 11 suspects charged Monday were accused of conspiracy to murder, as well as an offense under new counterterrorism laws, “preparing acts of terrorism.” The charges accuse them of planning “to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board.”

The three others were charged with lesser offenses under earlier counterterrorism laws, Ms. Hemming said.

The 11 charged suspects do not include all of those on a list issued earlier by the Bank of England of people whose assets were being frozen as part of the inquiry. For example, they do not include Tayib Rauf of Birmingham, whose brother Rashid Rauf was arrested by Pakistani authorities who said they suspected him of being a “key player.”

Ms. Hemming said the authorities had not decided whether to seek the further detention of any of the suspects still being held without charge. Under counterterrorism laws, the authorities must apply to a High Court judge by Wednesday to detain them for another seven days.

A police official, who insisted on anonymity because the case was still unfolding, said it was possible that more people would be charged with conspiracy. Under British law, people who have already been charged may not be interviewed further by the police, unlike those held under the 28-day counterterrorism law.

So far, Mr. Clarke said, the police have found bomb-making chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide and electrical components, recalling earlier British and American accounts that there was a plan to mix liquids into an explosive cocktail once they had been carried aboard airliners heading for American cities.

Mr. Clarke went on to say: “We have also found a number of video recordings — these are sometimes referred to as martyrdom videos. This has all given us a clearer picture of the alleged plot.”

After the London Transport bombings of July 7, 2005, two of the four attackers, who killed 52 people, were shown in videos warning that more attacks would follow.

Although the July 7 bombings and further attempts two weeks later, on July 21, caused deep anxiety, little information has emerged about the extent of the continuing terrorist threat. No criminal charges have been brought in connection with the July 7 bombings, and there are tight legal restrictions preventing British news organizations from reporting details of other suspected plots, for fear of prejudicing trials.

Mr. Clarke offered no prospect of a quick solution to the latest case.

“The meticulous investigation of all this material will take many months,” he said, referring to the seizure of documents and computer data taking up 6,000 gigabytes. “All the data will be analyzed. There will be thousands of forensic examinations and comparisons. Fingerprints, DNA, electronic data, handwriting comparisons, chemical analysis and indeed the full range of forensic disciplines will be used.”

In discussing the case in public, the police trace a fine line between seeking to convince the public of the threat they face and avoiding prejudicing the suspects’ trial.

Currently the British police are embroiled in one major terrorism trial under way and a second that is to open in October, when five suspects face charges related to the failed bombings on July 21, 2005.

The 11 suspects who were charged Monday seemed to be mostly British Muslims of Pakistani descent, but one was identified as Umar Islam, also known as Brian Young, a convert to Islam. Another was Ibrahim Savant, also a convert.

The eight people charged with conspiracy to murder were also charged with planning “to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble them and detonate them on board.”

The three others include the youngest suspect, a 17-year-old — whose name was not released because of British legal restrictions on identifying minors — accused of possession of “a book on improvised explosives devices, some suicide notes and wills with the identities of persons prepared to commit acts of terrorism and a map of Afghanistan containing information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”

They also include a woman, Cossar Ali, and a man called Mehran Hussain, who were accused of failing to disclose information that could prevent an act of terrorism.

Mr. Hussain was charged with failing to tell the authorities what he knew about Nabeel Hussain, one of the 11 people still held without charge under the counterterrorism laws. The charge against Mehran Hussain dated to Sept. 23, 2005, suggesting that he had been under surveillance since then.

Ms. Ali was accused of failing to divulge information about Ahmed Abdullah Ali, also known as Abdullah Ahmed Khan, widely reported in British newspapers to be her husband. He is one of the eight accused of conspiracy to murder.

Those eight were, in addition to Mr. Ali, Adam Khatib, Ibrahim Savant, Waheed Zaman, Tanvir Hussain, Umar Islam, Arafat Waheed Khan and Assad Ali Sarwar.