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| Britain |
| Briton 'linked to Al-Qaeda leadership' |
| 2008-12-19 |
| (AKI) - In a groundbreaking ruling on Thursday, a British court convicted Pakistani-descended Rangzieb Ahmed of directing terrorism. He is the first person to be found guilty of the offence in the United Kingdom. Ahmed, 33 was also found guilty of belonging to Al-Qaeda and was a key link between British recruits and Al-Qaeda leaders. The jury cleared him on seven other counts, which included claims that he had "hitlists" of possible high-profile targets including former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Ministry of Defence officials. A second defendant, taxi driver Habib Ahmed, 29, was also convicted of the charge of belonging to Al-Qaeda. His wife was not guilty of attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2006 and arranging funding for the purposes of terrorism. Rangzieb and Habib Ahmed showed no emotion as the verdict was read out. Their sentences will be announced on Friday. The two men are not related. Manchester Crown Court in northern England heard during the trial that luggage belonging to Ahmed was found to contain diaries with the names and phone numbers of other Al-Qaeda operatives, some of which were written in invisible ink. The contacts in Ahmed's diary included Hamza Rabia, Al-Qaeda's suspected former third in command, who was killed in an explosion. Police continued to monitor Ahmed when he returned to Britain after counter-terrorism officers in late 2005 placed him under surveillance in Dubai, where prosecutors said he had travelled on an aborted Al-Qaeda mission. Ahmed abandoned the mission when a senior Al-Qaeda leader was killed in a United States missile attack, prosecutors said. Phone taps by British intelligence revealed Ahmed's high-level links to Al-Qaeda leaders in South Asia and his role as a trusted and experienced operative. He had been in contact with one of the men who carried out a botched suicide bombing mission on the London public transport on 21 July, 2005, according to prosecutors. Ahmed also set up a terror cell in Manchester that backed insurgents in Afghanistan, but which was broken up by police last year. Ahmed's lawyers say he was tortured during eight months of detention in Pakistan's notorious Adiala Jail after Pakistani police arrested him there in August 2006 over alleged links with Al-Qaeda. Ahmed claims a CIA officer was present during his arrest in Pakistan and that he was visited by British intelligence officers while he was in Adiala. |
| Posted by:Fred |