LONDON, 15 September 2006 — In relation to anti-terror raids across London on Sept. 1, five men and a youth were remanded in custody yesterday after appearing before magistrates in the City of Westminster.
The six were among a group of 14 people arrested following a police operation targeting groups allegedly recruiting and training people for terrorism and inciting them to murder. The six were also accused of possessing information useful for terrorism purposes and at least one was said to possess a short-barreled shotgun — a prohibited weapon under the UK’s Firearms Act.
So far ten people have been charged and remanded in custody under the 2006 Terrorism Act after police raided several premises across London on Sept. 1. One of the places raided included “The Bridge to China Town,” a halal Chinese restaurant in Borough, south London, where 12 people were arrested. In all 14 people were arrested that night, of which two have since been released without charge.
Those who appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday included Muhammad Al-Figari, 42, of Tottenham, Kadar Ahmed, 19, of Plaistow, Moussa Brown, 40, of Walthamstow, a 17-year-old youth from Camberwell, who cannot be named for legal reasons, Atilla Ahmet, 42 of Leiwsham and Saloum Joh, 21, of Putney.
All except Ahmet and Joh were remanded in custody until Oct. 12 when they will reappear before the court via video link. Ahmet was remanded in custody until Sept. 29 when he will appear at the Old Bailey, and Joh was remanded in custody until Dec. 7. Four other men arrested at the restaurant appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Tuesday and were similarly remanded in custody. The remaining two are still in custody and will have to be charged or released by Sept. 29.
Meanwhile, the trial of seven British Muslims accused of being involved in an alleged bomb plot in March 2004 — after a large quantity of fertilizer was found at a west London depot — began yesterday at the Old Bailey.
One of the alleged leaders of the cell, 24-year-old Omar Khyam of Crawley, West Sussex, told a jury that he was elated when he first heard about the Sept. 11 attacks but after speaking to scholars became convinced that the attacks were wrong.
Khyam, his younger brother Shujah-ud-Din Mahmood, 18, Waheed Mahmood, 33, Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley; along with Anthony Garcia, 27, from Ilford; Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley in Surrey; and Salahuddin Amin, 30, from Luton, are accused of conspiring to cause an explosion likely to endanger life contrary to section 3 (1)(a) of the Explosive Substances Act 1883.
Prosecutors allege that the men plotted between Jan. 1, 2001, and March 31, 2004, to set off a series of bombs at pubs and nightclubs in London. All seven have denied charges of conspiring to cause explosions.
Khyam admitted that he believed in the “cause” of liberating occupied Muslim lands, and went to Pakistan in 2000, to train with a group of mujahedeen fighting in Kashmir. “They taught me everything I needed for guerrilla warfare in Kashmir. AK47s, pistols, RPGs, sniper rifles, climbing and crawling techniques, reconnaissance and light machine guns,” he told the jury.
In other developments, the UK Department of Transport is preparing to relax some of the restrictions on hand luggage on planes flying from British airports. The new relaxed security measures are to take effect next week after the department consults airline operators next Monday, some of whom have been highly critical of the over-restrictive measures introduced after the foiling of an alleged terror plot aimed at using liquid explosives carried in hand luggage to blow up nine planes midair en route to major US cities.
According to reports in the UK media, the government will allow passengers to take on board two small bottles of liquids; and will increase the size of the hand luggage bags allowed on board to the pre-plot size. The government reportedly will also allow certain bulky items such as musical instruments and TV camera equipment as carry-on baggage. On the question of bottles in hand luggage, the government is awaiting the tests of new equipment, which are apparently able to detect liquid explosives.
The UK Department of Transport, in a statement, reiterated that it has been working “to see if there are any practical steps that can be taken to lessen the burden while not compromising on security.”
At the “Last Night of the Proms” — the annual BBC classical music extravaganza, held on Saturday evening — conductor Mark Elder bitterly complained about the ban on musical instruments as hand luggage on planes and wryly told the audience that the time had come “really to put an end to this unfairness. Otherwise it seems to me that next year we should all look forward to concerto for laptop and orchestra.”
The Department of Transport has warned that there was no immediate prospect of a return to the situation that existed before the terror alerts on Aug. 10 this year.
Airline operators have welcomed the imminent relaxation of some of the security measures regarding hand luggage. Ryanair — the budget airline that never turns away a promotion opportunity — is even capitalizing on the move by extending an earlier offer of four million free seats to passengers by an extra one million.
A spokesman for Ryanair stressed, “We welcome any move to remove the ineffective measures currently in place and to restore security to the safe levels that apply to all inbound flights (to) the UK. To do anything less would hand the extremists a victory.”
