When we asked the question "Is Heathrow really under more terrorist threat than usual ?" we were not convinced by the media spin, leaks and disinformation about the recent arrests of Al Quaeda suspects in Pakistan which lead to the poltically expedient "orange alert" in the financial districts of New York and Washington, and to the arrest of 14 suspects in the UK.
After being held without charge for 2 weeks under the draconian Terrorism Act 2000, there remained only 9 of the original 14 arrested. One of the 14 had been released without charge on the day of arrest, another was released without charge in the first week, and two others had been "de-arrested" and then re-arrested on alleged possesion of false identity documents (of unspecified type and nationality - were these actually forged British documents ?).
According to the BBC,
"A ninth man, Matthew Monks, 32, of Sudbury, London, is charged with possession of a prohibited weapon"
This could be anything from a flick knife to an electric stun gun, but is presumably not a firearm of any kind, so even though he has been held for 2 weeks without charge, is he really a terrorist suspect ?
The remaining 8 should therefore all be hardcore Al Quaeda terrorists, who present an immediate threat to the United Kingdom.
Except, that is, when one reads the PA reports of what they have actually been charged with, then some doubts appear:
"The eight men have been charged as follows:
1. Conspiracy to murder.
Dhiren Barot, Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, Abdul Aziz Jalil, Omar Abdul Rehman, Junade Feroze, Zia Ul Haq, Qaisar Shaffi and Nadeem Tarmohammed, on diverse days between the 1st day of January 2000 and the 4th day of August 2004, conspired together and with other persons unknown to murder other persons contrary to section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977."
Are they being charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the United Kingdom or somewhere else ?
"2. Conspiracy to commit public nuisance.
Dhiren Barot, Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, Abdul Aziz Jalil, Omar Abdul Rehman, Junade Feroze, Zia Ul Haq, Qaisar Shaffi and Nadeem Tarmohammed, on diverse days between the 1st day of January 2000 and the 4th day of August 2004, conspired together and with other persons unknown to commit public nuisance by the use of radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and/or explosives to cause disruption, fear or injury contrary to Section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977.
i.e. The police cannot have found any "radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and or explosives" whatsoever, or else the suspects would have been charged with possession, under a variety of laws dealing with dangerous materials, including Section 57 of the Terrorism Act. "Possession for terrorist purposes".
They were not charged with "endangering public health" or "disrupting the economy of the United Kingdom" but a conspiracy to commit a "public nuisance"
3. Possessing a document or record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
Dhiren Barot and Nadeem Tarmohammed, on a day or days between 19th day of February 2001 and 4th day of August 2004, had in their possession a document or record, namely a reconnaissance plan concerning the Prudential Building in New Jersey, containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
4. Possessing a document or record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
Dhiren Barot, on a day or days between 19th day of February 2001 and 4th day of August 2004 had in his possession documents or records, namely a reconnaissance plan concerning the Stock Exchange in New York, a reconnaissance plan concerning the IMF in Washington DC, a reconnaissance plan concerning Citigroup in New York and two notebooks containing information on explosives, poisons, chemicals and related matters containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
5. Possessing a document or record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
Qaisar Shaffi, on a day or days between 19th day of February 2001 and 4th day of August 2004 had in his possession documents or records, namely an extract of the Terrorist?s Handbook containing information on the preparation of chemicals, explosive recipes and other information about explosives, containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000."
The Terrorist's Handbook available on the internet ? Nothing in this document is
sufficient to be a threat to large financial institution buildings in the USA, and it does not cover the more sophisticated techniques already demonstrated by Al Quaeda bomb makers.
There seems to be something very wrong here.
As is usual with anything to do with reports about terrorism in the UK, a few questions which the media have either not bothered to ask, or which have not been answered by the authorities, spring to mind:
- Where is threat to Heathrow Airport or indeed to anybody within the United Kingdom which the government and media hype has been trying to threaten us with over the last couple of weeks ?
- Why were these people arrested at what would seem to be only the "thought crime" stage of their plans, before they had any access to weapons or explosives or biological or chemical toxins or radioactive material ?
- Is it really possible to commit a "public nuisance" in a foreign country yet fall under the jurisdiction of the UK courts ?
- Why are none of them being charged under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 Part 6 Weapons of Mass Destruction if they really had access to "radioactive materials, toxic gases, chemicals and/or explosives" ?
- If their targets were those mentioned in the USA, then surely their arrest in the UK was premature ? Could they not have been kept under surveillance and the USA authorities tipped off when they eventually travelled to the USA ?
- If these are really key Al Quaeda terrorists, then it should have been possible to charge at least one of them under the Terrorism Act with "directing terrorism" or "financing terrorism" ?
- Why are none of these people being charged with "membership of a proscribed terrorist organisation" under the Terrorism Act ?
- Which one of those charged is the alleged "Bilal"/"Abu Musa al-Hindi," the supposedly Hindu born key Al Quaeda operative in contact with the allegedly compromised double agent Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan in Pakistan ? Is it meant to be Dhiren Barot ?
- If this really is the gang of Al Quaeda terrorists who were plotting to attack the financial buildings in the USA, then why is the "orange alert" still in effect, when the "reconnaissance plan" documents have been in the possesion of the authorities for two weeks ?
- Or are even these "reconnaissance plan" documents also over 3 years old, pre-dating the September 11th 2001 attacks, just like the ones allegedly found on laptop/notebook computers in Pakistan ?
- Are these "reconnaissance plan" documents and "notebooks" paper ones or are they actually portable computer ones ?
So there have only been 3 people charged under the Terrorism Act 2000, despite it being used to arrest 14 people.
However, these charges only use the controversial "catch all" Section 58, the "collection of information" clause, which was originally brought in after the ABC "animal rights" case.
Section 58 is controversial because it "reverses the burden of proof" i.e. the accused is put in the position of having to justify his or her possession of any thing at all, even public domain documents or books or of photos or plans which are available on a public website. Under Section 58 the accused has to prove his or her innocence, rather than the prosecution having to prove malicious intent, which is the normal, centuries old , tried and tested procedure of British justice.
Given the lack of charges under the Terrorism Act or even the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, pertaining to actual imminent threats to the UK or even to the USA, then it would appear that these suspects have been arrested far too soon, and that no fully formed or concrete terrorist plan has actually been disrupted by these arrests.
We do not feel any safer from terrorism as a result of these high profile arrests, where the authorities seem to be grasping at straws of evidence.
Perhaps some more details will emerge when the accused go before a judge today.
The "prohibited weapon" that Matthew Monks has been released on bail for possession of, is apparently a Brocock air pistol, a favourite amongst low level criminals since it works with individual pressurised gas cartridges, and can be converted to fire real pistol ammunition.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/features/2003/01/09/buying_a_gun.shtml
None of the 8 suspects facing conspiracy to murder charges etc. has been charged with the possession of any weapon, explosive, biological pathogen, chemical toxin or radioactive material, whatsover.
Today's court appearance only reinforces the impression that this group of alleged terrorists was arrested far too soon, before they even atttempted to get hold of any weapons either in the UK or in the USA, presumably as a result of the intelligence disaster by politicians in the USA who leaked the name of the alleged double agent Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan in Pakistan.
was it perhaps an insdie job, to force the security services to react early,knowing that they could possibly have the case thrown out.....or to minimise the quality of the charges against them.
Or were these persons picked up just prior to the trial, the very next week, of Mohammed Junaid Babar in New York.
At the NY trial, Babar pronounced that he would co-operate with the authorities and plea-bargain his likely 70-year sentence for “supplying night-vision goggles, sleeping bags, waterproof socks, waterproof ponchos and money to high-ranking al Qaeda officials in Pakistan” & for allegedly setting up training camps & for supplying those attending the training camps with aluminum powder (and attempted to buy ammonium nitrate for them) "with the knowledge that it was going to be used for a plot somewhere in the U.K."
The events in the NY court of the week following the August 3rd 2004 arrests of Barot et al laid the foundations for the Crevice Trial of March 06 to April 07. Perhaps these men arrested knew that Mohammed Junaid Babar wasn’t all he was making out to be.
In the New York courtroom in August 04, Babar plea bargained to reduce a sentence for the (alleged) crime that he appeared to be the main instigator/facilitator of, and subsequently proceeded to implicate (by his ‘verbal’ evidence in the Old Bailey) a number of British young men who, without his [Babar’s] ‘supergrass’ testimony (& in the absence of other evidence, save that extracted by the torture of Salahuddin Amin) would not have been found guilty.
The convicted men’s lawyers have publicly stated (on behalf of the convicted) that “There was no limit to the money, resources and underhand strategies that were used to secure convictions in this case”
And this is not even touching on the connections between the Crevice lot & the two ‘July 7th suspects’.
Peter Clarke on the case of Dhiren Barot:
It is no exaggeration to say that at the time of the arrest there was not one shred of admissible evidence against Barot. The arrest was perfectly lawful - there were more than sufficient grounds, but in terms of evidence to put before a court, there was nothing. There then began the race against time to retrieve evidence from the mass of computers and other IT equipment that we seized. It was only at the very end of the permitted period of detention that sufficient evidence was found to justify charges. I know that some in the media were sharpening their pencils, and that if we had been unable to bring charges in that case, there would have been a wave of criticism about the arrests. Barot himself of course eventually pleaded guilty last year and received a 40-year sentence."