British police probing an alleged plot to blow up as many as 10 US-bound airliners have gathered "substantial material" in their investigation, Home Secretary John Reid said on Sunday, as police continued to question 23 suspects and conduct searches at locations across the country.
Reid, Britain's senior law and order official, indicated some individuals could be charged with criminal offenses in the next few days as a result of the inquiry but refused to disclose specific details, in keeping with the tightlipped nature of the operation.
"Police and the security authorities are content that their investigation is rewarding substantial material which would allow them to take forward the judicial process," Reid said in an interview with ABC-TV's This Week.
"The police and the authorities are convinced that there was an alleged plot here. They have intervened. And in the course of the next few days, we'll wait and see what happens in terms of charges," the home secretary said.
Investigators have until today to question two suspects, and until tomorrow to interview 21 others. Officers may seek to hold the suspects for a maximum of 28 days before charging them. To keep suspects they still wish to question in custody, police must ask a judge to extend the current deadlines.
London's Metropolitan police said yesterday it could not confirm if officers would make any application today to continue to detain the two suspects due to be released under the current deadlines.
In Pakistan, law enforcement officials are continuing to interrogate Rashid Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent, over his alleged key role in the plot, officials said.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said British police were conducting inquiries in Pakistan, but were not involved in the questioning of Rauf.
New security measures threw Britain's airports into chaos in the days after arrests were made on Aug. 10, but officials at London's Heathrow Airport -- Europe's busiest, and the worst affected hub -- said on Sunday that most flights were now unaffected.
British Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling said airport security restrictions were "proportionate" to the threat level, which stands at severe -- the second most serious level.
He said a meeting has been scheduled within "the next week or so" to listen to concerns from airport operators, who claim the government demanded too many time-consuming security checks in the aftermath of the arrests.
"Unfortunately it was necessary, because of the intelligence we received, to step up security," Darling told BBC television on Sunday.
"But I hope that in the next few days we can make sure that the system is manageable, is proportionate," he said.
Tighter security regulations on passengers carrying hand luggage and liquids onboard planes were ushered in at airports after Reid said police had foiled a plan to "bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions."
It was revealed by US officials that authorities believed the alleged terrorists planned to detonate liquid explosives aboard the aircraft.
When asked if that was possible, Reid told the TV program that it was "relatively simple to make quite an effective bomb" aboard an airplane.
"It is a constant search by the terrorists to find ways around our restrictions, around our surveillance, around our security means, around our airports and other transportation restrictions, in order to try and defeat our counterterrorism and to inflict the sort of damage that we've seen before," Reid said.
also see story:
Inside the Tablighi Jamaat, a UK Islamic group with a mission
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS