2:40pm Monday 30th April 2007
FIVE members of an al Qaida cell were facing lengthy jail sentences today for plotting a bombing campaign in Britain to rival the 9/11 attacks in the US.
The radical Islamic group's leader, Omar Khyam, was found guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life following a year-long Old Bailey trial costing £50million.
The plan was to use 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser as the basic ingredient for a bomb attack on a busy nightclub or shopping centre, which would have killed hundreds of innocent civilians.
But today's convictions were overshadowed by revelations about the terror cell's links to the July 7 suicide bombers.
It can now be revealed that Mohammed Sidique Khan, the ringleader of 7/7, was a close associate of Omar Khyam when he was one of Britain's top terror targets and in the final stages of his plotting.
Khyam also met another of the July 7 suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer.
Despite this, both Khan and Tanweer were dismissed as peripheral figures by police and MI5 and not fully investigated.
Within 16 months they led a wave of bombings on Tube trains and a bus in London that killed 52 people.
In the wake of the revelations, politicians, relatives and survivors of the blasts all called for an independent inquiry into the failings that allowed the July 7 cell to slip through the net.
The fertiliser plot is one of the biggest terrorist conspiracies ever foiled by the police and security services in Britain, while the investigation into it was the largest anti-terrorism operation ever mounted.
Before the court with Khyam were his brother Shujah Mahmood, 20; Waheed Mahmood, 35; and Jawad Akbar, 23, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Anthony Garcia, 25, of Barkingside, east London; Nabeel Hussain, 22, of Horley, Surrey; and Salahuddin Amin, 32, of Luton, Bedfordshire.
They denied conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1, 2003, and March 31, 2004.
Khyam, Garcia and Hussain also denied a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism.
Khyam and Shujah Mahmood further denied possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.
The defendants denied there was a plot.
The jury was out for a record 27 days, with almost 135 hours of deliberations.
Garcia, Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Amin were convicted with Khyam of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Hussain and Shujah Mahmood were cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions.
Khyam and Garcia were also found guilty of possessing the fertiliser for terrorism, but Hussain was cleared.
Khyam was also found guilty of possessing the aluminium powder for terrorism, but Shujah Mahmood was found not guilty.
The fertiliser bomb plotters talked of bringing down a plane and even blowing up Tony Blair.
They were recorded in secret by the intelligence service as they discussed potential targets that included London Underground trains, gas and electricity plants, the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, and the Ministry of Sound - London's biggest nightclub.
In one conversation, Omar Khyam and Jawad Akbar talked of a suicide mission involving a British Airways plane.
The flight, with 300 passengers, would be crashed and they said there would be no need to fly it into a building as the 9/11 terrorists had done.
On another occasion, Waheed Mahmood was so keen he even suggested bombing the giant Bluewater shopping centre in Kent on the following day.
Khyam claimed in court he had been joking when he talked about blowing up the Prime Minister while watching television in Pakistan in 2003.
Waheed also said they could cause millions of pounds of damage without killing people if they hit utilities such as telephone companies, gas and electricity suppliers.
During the trial, the court also heard Islamic terrorists were on the trail of a nuclear bomb, which they hoped to buy from the Russian mafia.
Salahuddin Amin was involved in the discussions to buy the bomb, the court was told.
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