Thread: UK Doctors 'sought wholesale murder'

Doctors 'sought wholesale murder'

The blazing car crashed into the terminal building's doors

Two NHS doctors plotted "indiscriminate and wholesale" murder with car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow Airport, Woolwich Crown Court has heard.

Prosecutors say Dr Bilal Abdulla was in a burning car filled with explosives which rammed the Glasgow airport terminal building in June last year.

He and Kafeel Ahmed, now dead, are also said to have left cars full of explosive material in central London.

Dr Abdulla, 29, and Dr Mohammad Asha, 27, deny plotting a terror campaign.

Map of the incidents referred to in the case

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC told the court that the men were motivated by revenge for how they believed the UK was treating Muslims in conflicts around the world.

Bilal Abdulla and Mohammad Asha

Prosecutors say Dr Abdulla built the bombs and attacked the targets with Kafeel Ahmed, while Dr Asha played a key role behind the scenes, advising and supporting the plot.
"Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles. No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas," Mr Laidlaw said.
"These men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale.
"By the carrying out of a series of explosions, with no warning as to where the next strike would occur, the terrorists knew the public would be gripped by fear. They would not know where the terrorists would strike next."

Failed bombs

The trial heard that two remotely-controlled car bombs left in central London in the early hours of Friday 29 June would have killed many young people on a night out. One of the two Mercedes was parked outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub. The other around the corner on Cockspur Street.
Two cars were left in crowded parts of the West End

Large quantities of nails had been added to both vehicles to add to their destructive effect, said Mr Laidlaw.
"The repeated attempts to detonate the vehicles failed but that was not through any lack of effort by the bombers. It was no more than good fortune that nobody died."

The 30 June attack on Glasgow Airport, the court heard, was a "dramatic change" in plan because of the unexpected failure of the previous day.

The men had two more cars and enough material to make bombs for each. But they also knew that the police would now be on their trail.

The jury heard that Dr Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed went to their bomb factory on Neuk Crescent, Houston, and loaded a Jeep with gas cylinders and petrol bombs. From there, they set out on a short journey to the airport to kill both travellers and themselves in a "spectacular" attack on the terminal's busiest day of the year.

Holidaymakers filmed the car jammed in the terminal's entrance doors. It burned furiously, leading to Kafeel Ahmed's death, but failed to explode.

Arrested

The three men, the court heard, had met while studying in the UK.

Dr Abdulla, an Iraqi citizen born in the UK, was arrested after the burning Jeep failed to detonate. He was a junior house officer at the Royal Alexandra in nearby Paisley.

Dr Asha, a neurologist based in Staffordshire, was arrested late that day on the M6 motorway in Cheshire. Indian-born Kafeel Ahmed died from his burns five weeks after the Glasgow attack.
"As the evidence demonstrates, they turned their attention away from the treatment of illness to the planning of murder," said Mr Laidlaw.
"Material found in their possession after their arrests reveals that both men hold or adhere to extreme Islamic belief.
"Despite their professions and their obligations to save life and avert suffering, they both share the same extreme religious and murderous ideology as has inspired other terrorists who have struck at or threatened this country in recent years."

The trial continues.

BBC NEWS | UK | Doctors 'sought wholesale murder'

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Glasgow Bomb Co-Conspirator Returns Home

Anna Chan:
An Indian doctor is returning home today. Sabeel Ahmad was deported from United Kingdom after serving 18 months of jail-time for withholding information about his brother, Kafeel's plot to blow up Glasgow airport. Sabeel reached his home today in India's southern Bangalore. Ahmad was originally arrested in Liverpool last June. Last year Kafeel Ahmad drove his jeep into a Glasgow airport terminal, which then exploded. Kafeel later died in the hospital of wounds sustained in the attack.