Five Out Of Seven: British Bomb Plotters Convicted And Sentenced To Life

A British jury has convicted five of the seven men who were accused of plotting to blow up ... something, anything! ... using the fertilizer which British police claim to have discovered in a rented storage unit and aluminum powder which they say they found in a cookie tin in the mastermind's back yard. The judge has sentenced the convicted men to life in prison.

And rightly so! The evidence was incredibly compelling!

The evidence that had been carefully collected during the fifteen months while the convicted terrorists were merely suspects under surveillance was supplemented with additional evidence developed during the two years between their March 2004 arrests and the beginning of their year-long trial.

This accumulated proof of their guilt was so compelling that the jury deliberated longer than any previous jury in British legal history. In fact they might still be deliberating over this potentially catastrophic plot had the judge not intervened during the deliberation to tell them he didn't require a unanimous verdict, because 11-1 or even 10-2 would be good enough.

The men convicted in this case are tied to both al-Q'aeda and the 7/7 London bombings of 2005, which as noted previously (here and elsewhere) were so fishy they could never be (and in fact never were) subjected to any sort of investigation. The connection involves Mohammed Sidique Khan, whom police say was the ringleader behind the 7/7 attacks.

One of the two so-called ringleaders of this so-called plot was Omar Khyam [top left in photo], who last September refused to continue testifying after his first two days on the stand, saying that his family in Pakistan had been threatened by agents of the Pakistani intelligence service ISI. Apparently the ISI didn't want the court to hear any more from Khyam, who had let it slip that he had been trained not by al-Q'aeda but by ISI.

Pakistan is supposedly America's greatest ally in the GWOT, but it's becoming more and more apparent that ISI is effectively the South Asia branch of CIA and is closely linked to the British intelligence service MI6. And this connection is a matter of considerable embarrassment to British authorities. Or else it would be an embarrassment if it were widely-known, and/or if the British authorities were in any sense interested in telling the truth.

The other so-called ringleader [bottom middle in photo] was Anthony Garcia, a Moroccan formerly known as Rahman Benouis who changed his name while looking for work as a model, hopeful that landing a gig would be easier with a Latin-sounding name than an Arabic-sounding one. Garcia also implicated Pakistan in his testimony and testified that he knew about the fertilizer but thought it was to be shipped to Pakistan.

Another suspect whose name has appeared briefly in this space was acquitted: Shujah Ud-Dir-Mahmood, who testified that he cried himself to sleep at terrorist training camp because he missed his mum. So apparently it doesn't always pay to be a tough-guy!

As for coverage of today's momentous event, the Times Online has the best possible headline, How police and MI5 foiled 'Britain's 9/11' and they also accept comments although they have not seen fit to post the comment I submitted. Funny thing, that. Apparently I got talking about the connection between Omar Khyam and ISI.

There is, however, the obligatory pre-emptive comment:

I'm waiting for the moonbats to start blaming Israel, Iraq, Bush or Blair or all of the above.

Colour me surprised on that one, eh what, old chap?

The "professional" coverage has been unsurprising in other ways as well, with the AP's David Stringer writing

A judge sentenced five men to life in prison today for plotting to bomb several targets in London -- including a popular nightclub, power plants and shopping mall...

as if they had been planning multiple simultaneous bombings, even though the official story -- and the one being reported almost everywhere else -- says they had talked about a lot of possibilites but hadn't selected a target. There has never been, to my knowledge, any hint that they may have been planning to bomb more than one target.

But that's a minor point, and could certainly have been an unintentional insinuation on Mr. Stringer's part. On the other hand, the fertilizer plot was certainly aromatic, according to the Times Online account, which follows the cash:

The fertiliser was taken to Access Storage near Heathrow. Khyam refused to answer questions about why he was paying £207 a month to store £90 worth of fertiliser.

It doesn't sound like good cash-flow management to me, but what the heck? More to the point, I wouldn't answer questions like that either, would you?

The 7/7 connection is bothersome to some people, especially family members of 7/7 victims, some of whom may see their relatives as victims of an intelligence failure. They are asking about the connection: If the terrorists convicted today were known associates of Mohammed Sidique Khan, and Mohammed Sidique Khan was the ringleader of the 7/7 attacks, and the terrorists convicted today were arrested in 2004, does that mean the 7/7 attacks were committed by a known terrorist who could have and should have been stopped long before he hurt anyone?

One might think this objection would lead to a proper investigation of 7/7, and indeed it well may do so, but this does not seem likely at the moment, as the British home secretary has already announced.

The idea that an investigation might suggest that they should have detained Mohammed Sidique Khan before 7/7 is the least of the British authorities' fears. In all likelihood you'll see them spin this into a security failure of some sort that can only be rectified through a further clampdown on civil liberties; in any event the first version of the official story of how the 7/7 bombers were overlooked has already been disseminated.

The Mohammed Sidique Khan angle might be used as the basis for a whitewash, but it says here that from the point of view of the British authorities, the biggest danger inherent in any potential 7/7 investigation lies in the difficulty of running such a thing -- whitewash or no -- without exposing all the rogue three-letter agencies. (Well, mostly letters; Would you believe letters plus the digits 5 and 6?)

Where was I? Ah yes, the rogue agencies. The big danger is the possibility of exposing the somewhat plausibly deniable ways in which these rogue agencies are tied together to produce "terror of global reach".

And the word "somewhat" is key here; it's the variable. Plausible deniability ain't what it used to be. Tracks that once were covered are now easily visible.

And if a real investigation of 7/7 were to occur, it could be explosive. All of a sudden, instead of asking "Shouldn't they have arrested Mohammed Sidique Khan a long time before 7/7?", people would be asking questions like "Why are we funding the same guys that we're supposedly fighting?"

It's been well and truly said that the UK and the USA are two cultures divided by a common language. But we're not completely severed. Surely we benefit from inherent parallelism and a human bridge.

The bridge in my view consists of people who understand both cultures (or at least certain aspects of them) well enough to speak to (and understand) people on both sides of the Atlantic. Think of a journalist who started out in Tennessee but now lives in London, for example. Or a blogger who writes about cricket and American politics. Of course there are many others...

The inherent parallelism is best displayed in the way we use vastly different words for so many common simple things. This is sometimes easier to understand by reference to a third (neutral) language, as in the following examples:

The British say "leader" where the Americans would say "headline" and the French would say "manchette".

Similarly the Brits say "petrol" where the Americans say "gas" and the French say "gazeau".

These examples are well-known, but fewer people understand that "7/7 Truth" means almost exactly the same as "9/11 Truth". The French have a word for that, too: "Guillotines!"

In light of all this additional but still mostly unreported information, it's difficult not to grant a special Spinner Du Jour award to the aforementioned AP scribe David Stringer, who took great pains to inform us that

Court-imposed restrictions to ensure the men had a fair trial prohibited reporters from revealing [their links to 7/7 and al-Q'aeda] until the case ended.

It's reassuring to know that this vital information was suppressed in order to uphold the value of a fair trial, not because it would have made the current British position (i.e. no-investigation-ever) even more untenable than it already is.

There are many unanswered questions and I cannot deal with all of them at the moment, although I will probably ask and answer more of them some day. For now, three quick ones:

1) Their bomb didn't go off, did it?

What bomb? They never built a bomb.

2) How much stiffer would their sentences have been if they had actually killed somebody?

That depends on who they killed. Ha ha ha.

3) If a fair trial was so important, why did the judge tell the jury he didn't need a unanimous verdict?

That's an absurd assinuation.

Tough Guys On Trial

A TERROR suspect cried himself to sleep at a military training camp and said that he missed his mum, a court heard.
...
The court heard last week how [Shujah Ud-Dir-Mahmood] - who was 16 at the time - said the experience had been one of the worst in his life.
...
He said: "I got quite depressed when I was there. I used to spend a lot of time on my own, sitting in a ditch.

"I used to start crying when everyone else went to sleep. I missed my mum a lot."

I'm telling you, these guys are DANGEROUS!!

Mahmood, 19, is one of four Crawley men accused of being in a gang of seven British muslims which allegedly plotted to build a deadly fertiliser bomb.

I've been quoting from icSurreyOnline's Court told how terror suspect 'missed his mum', which, as far as I can tell, is the only British media account of the most recent events in this trial.

As alert readers may recall, earlier stages of the trial were heavily covered by the British media, but the coverage began to subside after Mahmood's brother, Omar Khyam, described close connections between the Pakistani intelligence service ISI and alleged terrorist group al-Q'aeda, then refused to continue testifying, saying that ISI agents had visited his relatives in Pakistan and threatened them.

As our friends in the British media say:

The trial continues.

Judge Strikes Down Key Part Of Canadian 'Anti-Terror' Law

A Canadian judge today struck down a key clause in Canada's primary "anti-terror" law, on the grounds that it infringes on freedom of religion, thought and association in violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is therefore unconstitutional.

This marks the second time in less than a week that portions of the Canadian government's "anti-terror" legislation have been struck down.

Justice Douglas Rutherford of Ontario Superior Court, after hearing a challenge brought by suspected terrorist Mohammed Momin Khawaja, ruled against a section of the law that defines terrorism in terms of ideological, religious or politicial motivation.

According to a Canadian Press report published by the Toronto Star,

Rutherford, in a 32-page written decision, zeroed in on the provision that makes proof of terrorism dependent on showing a religious, political or ideological motive for the criminal activity.

He wrote that this definition is “an essential element that is not only novel in Canadian law, but the impact of which constitutes an infringement of certain fundamental freedoms ... including those of religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression and association.”

Such an infringement, said Rutherford, “cannot be justified in a free and democratic society.”

An article from the Associated Press published by the International Herald Tribune reports:

Khawaja's lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said the ruling strikes to the core of the law.

"The motive clause is at the heart of the anti-terror law; that clause has been struck down," he said.

Canada dot Com reports:

Last week, an Ontario court struck down sections of Canada’s secrecy law in throwing out RCMP warrants used to search Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O’Neill’s home.

O'Neill had been reporting on the case of Maher Arar, who was detained by American authorities, sent to Syria and tortured there. Canadian security forces have been squirming lately in an attempt to distance themselves from the "extraordinary rendition" of Maher Arar, although it does look very much as if they were complicit in the event.

As for Khawaja, he is charged with being involved in an alleged British bombing plot which allegedly also included Omar Khyam, who refused to testify in a British court last month after members of the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, threatened his family in Pakistan. Another suspect in the case, Anthony Garcia, has testified that he wanted to go to Pakistan for military training.

As mentioned last month in connection with these events, the contradictions here are enough to make your head spin -- if you believe the "official cover story". In other words, if you accept the premise that ISI are a strong ally of the USA in the "War on Terror" and al-Q'aeda are the enemy, it could be difficult to understand why ISI agents would try to prevent al-Q'aeda suspects from testifying. But once you begin to understand -- what is becoming increasingly obvious -- that ISI and al-Q are two sides of the same coin, the matter becomes more and more transparent.

Did you happen to notice that both Arar and Khawaja are software developers who were working on contracts with the Canadian government? And does that raise any odd flags? Hmmm... Just wondering.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, CBC reports:

Mark Holland, an Ontario Liberal MP and a member of the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security, said the section of the act struck down wasn't the most important part.

Well, of course! There must be dozens of parts of the anti-terrorism law more important than the definition of terrorism!

The committee is already reviewing the Anti-Terrorism Act, Holland said, and will have to revisit the section struck down.

"We will have to go back to that definition and refocus it. We need a definition that is more acceptable to the courts," he said.

"Motivation is a very difficult thing for us because it is difficult for us to understand why someone would want to do us harm."

Of course it's difficult to understand, Mr. Holland. Why would anyone want to do Canada harm? I can't imagine any reason at all, unless you consider the fact that Canadian troops are waging a thoroughly unjustified war in Afghanistan!

From the IHT:

[Khawaja] has been tied to an alleged Islamic terrorist gang that plotted attacks against Britain's electricity supply network, pubs, nightclubs and trains, according to British prosecutor David Waters. He said Khawaja was an accomplice who carried out a "great deal of preparation" for the gang, whose alleged attacks were foiled in March.

Methinks the British prosecutor doth go way too far, considering previous admissions that the so-called suspects hadn't even selected a so-called target.

A few further comments may be germane here.

In the case of Juliet O'Neill, where secrecy provisions were declared unconstitutional, there was a very strong reaction from the forces of freedom.

As the Globe And Mail reported:

University of Ottawa law professor David Paciocco, who helped represent Ms. O'Neill and the Citizen in court, said in an interview that the ruling is a victory of global scope.

“The long and short of it is that this decision has potential relevance not only to historical research, but for countries internationally who deal with control of information by their governments,” Prof. Paciocco said.

“Even if the judge had not found that there was an abuse of process, this would be an indictment of the excessive reach of the security mentality that followed 9/11. It should chasten any police force from looking at journalists as the subject of an investigation.”

And the ruling itself was also very powerful.

In her ruling, Judge Ratushny said that so-called anti-leakage provisions in the Security of Information Act are extremely vague, too broad and wide open to flagrant misuse. She said that they “endanger the life, liberty and security of the person” in direct violation of Section 7 of the Charter of Rights.

“In their present state, the impugned sections give the state the ability to arbitrarily protect whatever information it chooses to classify as ‘secret official' or ‘official' or unauthorized for disclosure - and to punish by way of a criminal offence those ‘speakers,' ‘receivers' and ‘listeners' who come within that protected sphere.

“This is legislation that fails to define in any way the scope of what it protects and then, using the most extreme form of government control, criminalizes the conduct of those who communicate and receive government information that falls within its unlimited scope including the conduct of government officials and members of the public and of the press.”

I don't have a copy of today's ruling yet but I will try to keep you posted. Meanwhile, as the Toronto Star reports, the whole so-called anti-terror law was unnecessary in any case:

Greenspon argued that pre-existing Criminal Code provisions could have covered all Khawaja’s alleged activities.

So once again, the legislation itself is incomprehensible, unless, of course, both the definition of terrorism struck down today and the secrecy provisions struck down last week were aimed at something other than terrorism.

Hmmm... Just wondering.

Another Terror Suspect Spills Another Can Of Beans -- And Again They Land On Pakistan!

Just a few days ago we were talking about Omar Khyam, the suspected terrorist now on trial in Britain who stopped testifying after his family was threatened by representatives of the Pakistani intelligence service ISI.

The next witness in the same trial has taken the stand, and if the news reports from Britain are even halfway accurate, his family members may be due for a visit as well.

Anthony Garcia, formerly known as Rahman Benouis, testified that he bought 600 kg of ammonium nitrate fertilizer at the request of Khyam, and that he understood the fertilizer was

"to be shipped out to Pakistan."

The accounts of his testimony which are currently available do not say whether Garcia thought the fertilizer was intended for use on crops or to be made into bombs. British authorities have charged Garcia, Khyam, and five others of conspiring to carry out a major bombing. Nightclubs and shopping centers have been mentioned as possible targets.

Garcia also testified that he wanted to go to Pakistan for military training, but he denied being a follower of Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. He also denied being pleased by the attacks of 9/11, because, in his words:

[I]nnocent people were targetted. They did not do anything.

So why would he be involved with people who were supposedly preparing to build a bomb? It's a long story but some of the details are extremely interesting.

Garcia told the court he became radicalised after he was shown a video of alleged rapes and sexual abuses of children by Indian forces in Kashmir at the Islamic Society at his college in Romford, east London in 1999.

Garcia then told how he and his elder brother would fund raise around their Barkingside home, collecting funds from students, shopkeepers, businessmen and Mosques, which became an "almost religious objective" and helped him turn his back on "girls, drinking and staying out late."

He added 99 per cent of the community would support their cause as people in "occupied Kashmir" had the right to defend themselves and he was desperate to get out to Pakistan to receive military training.

He told the court people who had receive training were seen as "kind of like heroes" when they returned back to the UK and it was "common" for people to travel to Pakistan to get training.

He said: "If there was a little war going on in Kashmir, they would say we need people and they would only accept those that had done training."

Mr Ryder asked: "In your opinion was it viewed as an extremist thing to do?"

Garcia replied: "No, not at all."

But he told the court people were more "respected" if the[y] had done the training than if they just learnt the Qu'ran.

OK? Have you got all that?

Good. Now let's review what we've learned:

Although Pakistan is an ally of the USA in the War Against Terror, it's the place where people go to get the "military training" which will give them an added measure of "respect" in their community.

It's enough to make your head spin, isn't it? Something just doesn't seem right.

Here's something else that doesn't seem right: According to the Times Online account of his testimony, Garcia

said 9/11 was no different from the Madrid bombings or the July 7 London transport bombings.

Aside from the obvious fact that the three events mentioned were very different...

In all three cases the "official story" and the available evidence clearly contradict one another.

And all three attacks happened at very convenient times, if by "convenient" we mean "politically opportune" for the governments involved.

Could this be what Garcia was referring to? If I had to guess, I would say "no". But the irony is not lost. Not by a long shot.

As the British press reports all say,

The trial continues.

Terror Suspect, Having Spilled The Beans, Refuses To Testify Further

Terror suspect Omar Khyam, on trial after being accused of planning attacks against shopping malls and nightclubs in Britain, testified for two days but has refused to testify further, saying his family in Pakistan had been threatened by the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI.

Kyham is supposed to be connected with Al-Q'aeda. ISI is supposed to be allied with the USA and working against Al-Q'aeda. So why would ISI threaten Khyam's family?

Was it something he said?

According to the Indian newspaper The Hindu:

Last week, Mr. Khyam told the court that ISI was training militants and during his visit to Pakistan six years ago he trained in an ISI-supervised camp.

"The ISI was setting up camps in what we called Free Kashmir, funding it with money and weapons and people that would train people, and logistical supplies, everything," he said.

Mr. Khyam said the people who trained him in handling arms were "selected by the ISI".

"The ISI works with Islamic groups," he added.

So there you have it. I don't see how he could have made it any clearer. It's no wonder the ISI visited his family. They probably would have visited Omar Khyam himself, were he not incarcerated (and therefore well-protected).

Khyam's statements strike at the very heart of the so-called War on so-called Terror, and therefore -- of course -- this story has been ignored by the American media. Instead, the "official" scribblers continue to report the "official" White House line, without even stopping to ask whether it makes any sense. For example, according to Bloomberg, the president sees Pakistan as an ally in the war against terror:

"Under President Musharraf, Pakistan is siding with the forces of freedom and moderation and helping to defend the civilized world," Bush said in his weekly radio broadcast. "It is in America's interest to help him succeed."

But we now know better, don't we?

In fact, those who wish to read -- and learn -- know much better, and have done for a long time.

For further details, I recommend More Evidence “al-Qaeda” is a CIA-ISI Contrivance by the inimitable Kurt Nimmo, and Pakistan Army: Unwavering Support for Cross-border Terrorism by Indian Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal (Retd.), as published by the Asian Tribune. Excerpts follow.

Gurmeet Kanwal:

Though the West continues to be in denial mode and its leaders lose no opportunity to praise General Musharraf for his cooperation in fighting international terrorism, the fact remains that despite loud protestations to the contrary, Pakistan is still the hub of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism. In order to understand this proclivity to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, it is necessary to examine the deeply ingrained mindset of Pakistan’s ruling elite that is led by the Pakistan army.

According to a cliché popular in the strategic community, normally a state has an army but in Pakistan the army has a state. The Pakistan army has directly guided the nation’s destiny for more than half its history. During the other half, the army was engaged in driving from the backseat – a classic case of power without responsibility. The army sees itself as the natural guardian of the idea of Pakistan and a guarantor of its sovereignty. While it has tolerated short interludes of civilian rule, the army has always dictated Pakistan’s policy towards Kashmir, which it considers the unfinished agenda of Partition. It has also called the shots on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, the defence budget and senior army appointments. These issues were considered sacrosanct and no civilian prime minister could dare to interfere...

Kurt Nimmo:

Omar Khyam has revealed but another glimmer of the precise nature of the “al-Qaeda” terror network, information useful for connecting dots but that will of course be studiously ignored by our corporate media stenographers. “Khyam has revealed more information than was expected,” remarked Sajjan Gohel of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, billed as a counter-terrorism think tank. “He has given a lot of insight into how very many British Muslims have been recruited…. I think everyone was shocked. The question now is whether the whole truth will come out.”

Of course, it does not matter if “the whole truth will come out,” as it is irrelevant, especially for a society unable to connect the dots and, really, not wanting to connect the dots and learn the truth, as this particular truth interupts sit-coms and football games.

For every person who looks beyond the official story and gleans the indisputable truth about “al-Qaeda” and various other intelligence contrivances engineered by the Pentagon, CIA, MI-6, Mossad, et al, there are literally millions of people who buy into the official explanation, or rather Brothers Grimm machination—the Muslims, represented by the dead Osama and al-Zarqawi, are out to get us and an incessant “clash of civilizations” is required, with attendant police state and tyranny at home.