Eight in court on terror plot charges

Eight men arrived at court today under a heavy police escort to face charges of plotting terrorist outrages in Britain and the United States.

The first members of the group, who have been questioned for two weeks at the high-security Paddington Green police station in London, arrived at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court in two vans accompanied by police cars with a helicopter flying overhead.

The eight are jointly charged with conspiracy to murder, and planning to use radioactive materials, chemicals, toxic gases or conventional explosives in an attack.

Dhiren Barot, 32, from Willesden, north-west London, was charged under with having reconnaissance plans “which could have been used as a blueprint for an attack on financial institutions in the United States”.

The plans are alleged to have involved the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup in New York and the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.

Barot is also alleged to have been in possession of two notebooks containing information on explosives, poisons and chemicals.

He and Nadeem Tarmohammed, 26, also from Willesden, were also charged jointly with having reconnaissance plans of the Prudential Building in New Jersey.

Another man, Quaisar Shaffi, 25, also of Willesden, was charged over possession of an extract from the “Terrorist Handbook”, a bomb-making guide available on the internet.

Barot, Tarmohammed and Shaffi were jointly charged with plotting to murder and use explosives or toxic devices with five other men.

They were Omar Abdul Rehman, 20, of Bushey, Hertfordshire; Zia Ul Haq, 25, of Paddington, London; Abdul Aziz Jalil, 31, of Luton, Bedfordshire; Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 24, of Harrow, Middlesex; and Junade Feroze, of Blackburn, Lancashire.

The group are due to appear before a district judge at Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court later.