LONDON, 18 August 2004 — Police yesterday charged eight men with conspiracy to murder and other terrorist offenses, and two were charged with possessing reconnaissance material on financial institutions in New York City, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey.
The men were arrested two weeks ago in a major sweep connected to raids in Pakistan and to Aug. 1 terror alerts in the United States, where officials warned that Al-Qaeda had scoped out buildings as possible targets several years ago. A ninth man was charged with possession of a prohibited weapon. In Washington, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said that US authorities might also lay charges. The eight are due to make a first court appearance today at Belmarsh high security prison in London.
Intelligence sources have said one of the men is a major Al-Qaeda operative known as Abu Eisa Al-Hindi or Abu Musa Al-Hindi, suspected of being involved in the surveillance of financial institutions in Washington, New York and New Jersey.
The name is believed to be an alias, and none of the suspects charged yesterday was identified by that name. Metropolitan Police refused to discuss any aliases of the suspects.
A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Dhiren Barot, 32, who was charged on four counts, was the man known as Al-Hindi.
Metropolitan police identified the charged men as Barot; Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 24; Abdul Aziz Jalil, 31; Omar Abdul Rehman, 20; Junade Feroze, 28; Ziaul Haq, 25; Qaisar Shaffi, 25; and Nadeem Tarmohammed, 26.
The eight were accused of conspiring together and with unknown persons to commit murder, and conspiracy to commit public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and/or explosives.
Barot and Tarmohammed were charged with possessing a reconnaissance plan of the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J., in violation of the Terrorism Act. Barot was charged with possession of a reconnaissance plan of the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund building in Washington, the Citigroup building in New York, and possessing two notebooks containing information on explosives, poisons, chemicals and related matters. Shaffi was charged with possession of an extract of the “Terrorist’s Handbook” containing information on the preparation of chemicals and explosive recipes. Barot, Tarmohammed and Shaffi were all arrested in northwest London.
The ninth man, Matthew Philip Monks, 32, was charged with possession of a prohibited weapon.
“We commend the United Kingdom’s action today in bringing criminal charges against individuals who may have connections to potential terrorist activities in the United States,” Ashcroft said.
