News
Jury says not enough evidence to convict in transatlantic jetliner bomb plot

Sept. 8, 2008, London – A British jury found three men guilty Monday of
conspiracy to murder in a terrorist bombing campaign.
But the jury did not find enough evidence to convict them of a
plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

Jurors found that Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir
Hussain conspired to murder people using a form of hydrogen peroxide
to make a bomb.
Prosecutors said a group led by Ali considered national
infrastructure targets including gas terminals, oil refineries and
Heathrow Airport.

However, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on prosecutors'
claims that Ali intended to target passenger jets flying to Canada
and the United States with suicide attacks.
The jury also failed to reach verdicts on charges against four
other defendants _ Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan, Waheed Zaman
and Umar Islam. An eighth man, Mohammed Gulzar, was found not
guilty.

Prosecutor Peter Wright alleged during the trial that the men
planned to smuggle liquid explosives onto passenger jets and
detonate them in flight in a plot to kill thousands of people.
Wright alleged that Air Canada flights to Montreal and Toronto as
well as flights by United Airlines and American Airlines to several
U.S. cities were to be targeted.
The unravelling of the plot in the summer of 2006 caused travel
chaos.
Restrictions on the amount of liquid passengers can carry in
their hand luggage imposed in the wake of the men's arrest still
remain in place.