The Times of India : Terror Plot: Rauf Brother Freed in UK

Terror plot: Rauf brother freed in UK

August 24, 2006

LONDON: The brother of the key suspect in the aborted UK plot to blow up US-bound flights was released from custody on Wednesday, apparently after the British police concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime.

Tayib Rauf, a 22-year-old baker, was released from the Birmingham detention centre where he had been held for the last two weeks.

A British court on Wednesday extended the time nine suspects in the alleged plot can be held without being charged. Scotland Yard said two others were freed.

Authorities said eight suspects who have not been charged could be kept in custody until August 30, while the ninth suspect had his detention extended until Thursday.

The court's decision to allow more time to question the remaining suspects marks the first application of UK's new anti-terrorism law, which allows police up to 28 days to hold suspects while trying to build a case. Previously, detainees were released after 14 days.

The Rauf family has been central to a case authorities have described as the deadliest potential terrorist plot uncovered since the 9/11 attacks...

The arrest in Pakistan of Birmingham resident Rashid Rauf, Tayib's 25-year-old brother, was said to be the trigger that led to the detention of 23 others in Britain, some suspected of planning to smuggle liquid explosives on board trans-Atlantic flights.

Pakistani authorities have called the elder Rauf a "key figure" in the plot. He has been linked with at least two prominent militants in Pakistan, and authorities there said he acknowledged under interrogation that he had met "an active Al-Qaida leader" along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Tayib Rauf had been seen as a potentially important figure primarily because of his family relationship. His father, Abdul Rauf, the founder of a UK-based Islamic charity which is being investigated for possible links to terrorist financing, is reportedly one of 17 suspects, including Rashid Rauf, being held for questioning in Pakistan.

Authorities there and in Britain are looking at whether money raised by the charity, Crescent Relief, may have been diverted to fund terrorist activity.