Islamic terrorist found guilty in airline plot...

One of the airlines targeted was Air Canada...

A terrorist ringleader, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, was today found guilty of conspiring to murder thousands in an unprecedented airline bomb plot.

The 28-year-old was the leader of an east London al-Qaeda-inspired terror cell, a Woolwich Crown Court jury found. He planned to detonate home-made liquid bombs in suicide attacks on transatlantic aircraft bound for major north American cities.

Jurors found two other men, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, guilty of the same charge by a majority 11-1 verdict after a retrial of eight men.

Four other men, Donald Stewart White, Arafat Khan, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Zaman, were found not guilty of conspiracy to murder. The jury found another defendant, Umar Islam, guilty of a more general charge of conspiracy to murder but could not agree that he knew of the specific targets in the plot.
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News of the plot forced a major rethink of global airline security and saw stringent new safety rules stopping passengers taking liquids and creams aboard flights.

Ali was responsible for the most complex and daring British-based terrorist conspiracy in modern times.

With thousands killed in the air and on the ground, the explosions would have exceeded the carnage of the September 11 attacks. Counter-terrorist police, the security services and prosecutors spent more than £35 million foiling the plot and bringing Ali to justice.

The arrest of the gang in August 2006 sparked tight restrictions on carrying liquids on to aircraft that led to travel chaos.

The guilty verdict will come as an enormous relief for Government ministers who endured heavy criticism for introducing the draconian luggage restrictions. It will also be seen as a vindication of the decision to retry Ali after he was found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions last September. The previous jury failed to reach verdicts on the airline plot.

British-born Ali, of Walthamstow, was inspired by the July 7 bombers and Osama bin Laden and considered taking his baby son on his suicide mission.

He planned to smuggle home-made bombs disguised as soft drinks on to passenger jets run by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada. The hydrogen peroxide devices would have been assembled and detonated in mid-air by a team of suicide bombers.

Ali singled out seven flights to San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, New York and Chicago that departed within two-and-a-half hours of each other.

Authorities on both sides of the Atlantic would have been left powerless to stop the destruction once the first bomb exploded.

Police said the plot was drawn up in Pakistan with detailed instructions passed to Ali during frequent trips to its lawless border with Afghanistan.

They believe a mystery al-Qaeda bombmaker was responsible for the ingenious liquid bomb design, concealed within 500ml Oasis or Lucozade bottles.

Surveillance teams watched Ali on his return to Britain as he assembled his terror cell, gathered materials and identified targets. Undercover officers looked on as the unemployed former shop worker used cash to purchase a £138,000 second-floor flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow.

They planted a secret bug that revealed it was converted into a bomb factory where Ali met others to construct the bombs.

The flat was also used as a location for Ali and others to record suicide videos threatening further attacks against the West. In his video Ali warned the British public to expect "floods of martyr operations" that would leave body parts scattered in the streets.

Ali was watched as he used public phone boxes, mobile phones and anonymous email accounts to keep in touch with mystery terrorist controllers in Pakistan.

On his arrest, he was found to be carrying an elaborate and damning blueprint for the plot scrawled in a battered pocket diary. Airport security arrangements and details of flights, including the seven highlighted services, were discovered on a computer memory stick in another.