Guardian : Man gets life sentence for terror plot

Man gets life sentence for terror plot

James Sturcke and agencies | November 7, 2006

Dhiren Barot, who meticulously researched a plot to commit mass murder on a "colossal and unprecedented scale" in Britain and the US, was today jailed for life.

Judge Mr Justice Butterfield said Barot's plans would have caused carnage affecting millions of people if they had succeeded, and said he must serve at least 40 years before being considered for parole.

"This was no noble cause," the judge said. "Your plans were to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and butchery, first in Washington, New York and Newark, and thereafter the UK, on a colossal and unprecedented scale.

"Your intention was not simply to cause damage, panic or fear. Your intention was to murder, but it went further.

"It was designed to strike at the very heart of democracy and the security of the state. And if successful, it would have affected thousands personally, millions indirectly, and ultimately the whole nations of the US and the UK."

Woolwich crown court heard that 34-year-old Barot, who admitted conspiracy to murder, had been moving into the "final stages" of his plans to launch terror attacks on the UK when he was arrested.

He planned "back to back" strikes including packing limousines filled with explosives and detonating them in underground car parks, using a radioactive "dirty bomb", and a proposed gas attack on the Heathrow Express, Edmund Lawson QC told the court.

Barot also planned an additional attack, suggesting that a tube tunnel under the Thames could be punctured and allow water to flood into the London Underground network.

Speaking after sentence was passed, Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan police's counter terrorist command, described Barot as "a full-time terrorist".

"His training showed through," he said. "He used anti-surveillance, coded messages and secret meetings, but he could not evade capture. He was stopped before he could attack the British and American people. As always, our concern for public safety was paramount."

Mr Clarke said the arrest and conviction would be "seen as landmark in the fight against terrorism in the United Kingdom".

"For well over two years, we have been unable to show the British public the reality of the threat they faced from this man," he added. "Now they can see for themselves the full horror of his plans."

The home secretary, John Reid, said the case demonstrated "that the terrorist threat remains very real and serious".

Barot carried out extensive research and planning for the attacks, including reconnaissance visits to the US, use of the internet and visits to public and specialist libraries.

He wrote detailed documents on planned attacks in both countries, discovered on computer hard drives following his arrest in August 2004. Handwritten notes referring to chemical mixtures were also recovered.

In the "gas limos project" document, recovered from a laptop during a counter terrorist operation in Gujrat, Pakistan, Barot wrote of the pandemonium that could be caused by a bomb exploding on a tube train travelling under the Thames.

" ... Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here and actually rupture the river itself," he wrote. "This would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning, etc that would occur/result."

Barot was born in India into a Hindu family, which moved to north London when he was a baby. He converted to Islam as a young man, travelling to terrorist training camps in Pakistan and the Philippines, the court was told during the two-day hearing.

The attack plans were discovered in a document called Eminem2.doc, which was found on the hard drive of a laptop computer seized during the raid in Pakistan in July 2004.

Mr Lawson said the raid had been linked to an operation to identify and locate Naeem Noor Khan, a leading figure in the al-Qaida network with connections to the UK.

He told the court significant work had been carried out to establish Barot's authorship of the gas limos document, and that this was no longer disputed.

"It is plainly a presentation for the consideration of the al-Qaida leadership in Pakistan for approval and funding for plans to acquire explosives, hazardous, radioactive, inflammable material for use in co-ordinated terrorist attacks," he added.

The gas limo blasts were to have been launched simultaneously with other attacks including a dirty bomb, an attack on trains and the hijacking of petrol tankers to ram into a target.

Barot undertook reconnaissance missions in the UK and US in 2000 and 2001, during which he filmed buildings including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington DC and the Stock Exchange and Citigroup buildings in New York.

Although there was no evidence that he had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the US, one clip, played in court, showed the World Trade Centre with someone imitating the noise of an explosion in the background.

Footage from Barot's reconnaissance in New York was discovered concealed in a video of Bruce Willis' film Die Hard with a Vengeance, which is about terrorist attacks on New York. Police found the video in a London garage.