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UK bomb plot man religious, not militant: kin
Pakistani relatives of a British man jailed for life for plotting Al Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks said on Tuesday he was a religious man but had never shown any hint of militancy. Waheed Mahmood was one of five Britons jailed for life in London on Monday for plotting attacks on targets across Britain ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre. Were sad but helpless. Theres nothing we can do, said Mahmoods uncle, farmer Chaudhry Manga, in the village of Doongi, in rolling hills and wheat fields 60 km southeast of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. He was a religious person and used to offer prayers regularly. Perhaps that was his only mistake, Manga said wryly, puffing on a cigarette in his modest living room. Mahmoods grandfather first went to Britain in the 1950s or 1960s, villagers said. Mahmood, who relatives said was in his early 30s, was born in Britain but built a two-storey villa-style house of brown tiles and white walls in his family village. Married to a cousin, Mahmood came to stay in the house with his three daughters and son but left and went back to Britain when his children got sick, villagers said. He hadnt been seen for about three years, relatives and other villagers said. His house was empty on Tuesday, although villagers said a watchman was looking after it. When he stayed here I never saw anything suspicious about him, Manga said. I can tell from a persons face what theyre like. Had anything been wrong with Mahmood, I would have stopped him. Mahmood and his gang planned to use 600 kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make bombs in revenge for Britains support for the US after the September 11, 2001, attacks, prosecutors said. Posted by: Fred 2007-05-02 |
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