Three admit to British Parliament bomb plot

THREE British Muslims yesterday admitted plotting to explode a home-made bomb at the Houses of Parliament as part of a protest against British foreign policy.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, aged 27, Assad Sarwar, aged 28, and Tanvir Hussain, aged 27, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause explosions at Woolwich Crown Court, in south-east London.

The men also admitted conspiring to cause public nuisance by distributing Al-Qaida-style videos threatening suicide bomb attacks in Britain.

Two other men, Ibrahim Savant, aged 27, and Umar Islam, aged 30, also admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance.

But a jury must still decide if the five men, and three others, are guilty of an unprecedented transatlantic airline suicide bomb conspiracy.

Prosecutors claimed the men made the “inherently improbable” and “bogus” confessions to new charges in order to distract attention from the main allegations. They said the gang were in fact plotting to smuggle liquid bombs on board passenger jets flying from Heathrow to major cities in North America.

The bombs would be detonated by suicide bombers in a wave of mid-air explosions, killing thousands and leaving the authorities powerless to act, the jury were told.

Peter Wright, QC, said the conspirators were fanatics who believed they would achieve immortality in the eyes of other radical Muslims through mass murder.

He said: “What they intended to do was to shock the world, not merely by the nature of the acts engaged in, but also by the fact that such actions could be, and were, committed by those who were apparently ordinary law-abiding citizens.

“This was part of the message to the wider audience. A statement of the strength of resistance to perceived Muslim oppression across the globe.

“Namely there were those drawn from ordinary, everyday lives who were ready, able and willing, not withstanding their comfortable and safe existence, to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.”

The guilty pleas came before prosecution barristers summed up their case as the three-month trial draws to a close. The jury are expected to retire next week.

The men face two revised charges of conspiracy to murder, with one charge specifying that the attacks would involve the detonation of improvised bombs on passenger aircraft.