'Plotters aimed to bomb Tube'
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...108768,00.html
Defendant tried to recruit a London Underground worker for a ‘martyrdom operation’
A MUSLIM Tube worker was asked to become a suicide bomber by an Islamic extremist on trial for plotting to attack a British target, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.
The London Underground worker, known only as Imran, allegedly attended a terrorist training camp in Pakistan with four of seven men who are charged with conspiracy.
The court was also told that a key al-Qaeda operative called Q, who gave the men their orders, was living in Luton. Q reported to Abdul Hadi, No 3 in command of the terrorist organisation.
One defendant, Waheed Mahmood, allegedly sent supplies for al-Qaeda from Britain to Pakistan, including a GPS navigation system, solar panels, invisible ink and cash.
Another, Omar Khyam, was said to have masterminded a “martyrdom operation” with a belt bomb and wanted to know if Imran would be willing to carry it out. But Imran refused because he thought the plot would come to nothing.
And the older brother of a third defendant, Anthony Garcia, was allegedly planning a separate terrorist attack on a target in Britain.
The claims were made by Mohammed Babar, an American terrorist turned informant, who is giving evidence against his former accomplices.
He said that the group discussed how to smuggle bomb parts into Britain and carried out test explosions at a terrorist training camp in Malakand, a mountainous region in northern Pakistan. The first was unsuccessful but the second created a U-shaped hole.
A video was made of their training camp activities with the intention of adding verses from the Koran, and turning it into recruitment propaganda.
The men planned to smuggle explosives to Europe inside shampoo bottles, cans of shaving foam or packages of dried fruit — shipped, couriered or taken in person — while detonators would be concealed in a tape recorder.
Mr Khyam, 24, from Crawley, West Sussex, also allegedly tricked one Muslim into carrying aluminium powder on to a flight from Pakistan to Britain to see if Customs would detect the substance.
He attended the camp with his younger brother, Shujah Mahmood, 18, Mr Garcia, 24, from Ilford, East London, and other British Muslims who are not on trial. Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, did not attend because he had undergone previous training.
The men were said to have dressed and acted like tourists en route so that they would not attract attention. They moved into a hotel, travelled in a minibus emblazoned with its logo, wore Western clothes and stopped praying in public, on the orders of Abdul Hadi.
The defendants also took numerous photographs of each other while hiking and visiting local landmarks, as proof of their “tourist activities” if stopped by the authorities.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prosecutors rest case in Lodi terror trial, show images of camp
link
SACRAMENTO - Defense attorneys for a Lodi man charged with attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and his father were set to begin presenting their evidence Wednesday.
Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday against 23-year-old Hamid Hayat, calling a government witness who showed jurors satellite images of a suspected terror camp.
Eric Benn, an analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, on Tuesday discussed images that show what he said appear to be a militant training camp similar to one described to FBI agents by Hayat.
Benn said the mountainous location and description of the camp near Balakot in northeast Pakistan are consistent with statements made by Hayat during an interrogation by FBI agents last June, shortly after he returned to the U.S. following two years in Pakistan. Images taken in 2001 show tents and a variety of buildings.
"The kind of information I got out of the (Hayat interview) transcript ... is consistent with the physical things I observed," Benn testified in U.S. District Court. "This would be a militant camp. It strengthens my confidence in that."
The government's case against the Hayat's is built partially on separate confessions they gave to FBI agents.
Hayat is charged with three counts of lying to the FBI and separate charges of providing material support to terrorists for attending the al-Qaida camp. His father, 48-year-old Umer Hayat, is on trial at the same time before a separate jury. He is charged with lying to federal investigators about his son's attendance at the camp.
The Hayats' defense attorneys have said their confessions to FBI officials were made only after hours of interrogation and while they were worn down by leading questions. They also have pointed out that both men provided inconsistent testimony.
Benn's testimony and the satellite images are potentially important because prosecutors have no hard evidence that Hamid Hayat actually attended a terror training camp in Pakistan, an angle defense attorneys have said they will explore when they begin their portion of the case.
Jurors were shown the satellite images after previously hearing from experts about Pakistan's cultural and political environment. The combined testimony showed that terrorist-training camps and anti-American fervor were prevalent in Pakistan at the time Hamid Hayat was visiting.
Prosecutors allege that Hamid Hayat attended one such camp and returned to the U.S. in May 2005 to await orders to commit attacks against grocery stores, banks and hospitals. No such attacks were carried out, and the Hayats have pleaded not guilty.
Hamid Hayat, for example, variously told FBI agents that the camp he attended was in Afghanistan, the Kashmir region, near Tora Bora or at least three other locations far from Balakot, his attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, said Tuesday during cross-examination.
Hayat also discussed receiving pistol training, but Benn said the satellite images did not show obvious locations for a firing range.
Benn said Hamid Hayat's conflicting statements did not alter his opinion that the satellite images could show the camp he attended.
"There was a lot of language I had to reconcile," Benn said. "Late in the interview, (Hayat's statements) stopped having any consistency. It sounded like it was just bouncing around."
Mojaddidi says her client never actually attended a camp.
Also Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. denied a defense motion to dismiss the charges against the Hayats. Defense attorneys argued that prosecutors had failed to present sufficient evidence to support the charges.