Two doctors charged with trying to bomb a Glasgow airport and London’s West End will be portrayed as Islamic extremists bent on terrorizing their adopted British home, according to advance descriptions of the prosecutors’ case.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Mohammed Asha, 28, have been in jail awaiting trial since police linked them to botched car-bomb attacks in June last year.
Justice Colin Mackay said Wednesday that prosecutors would make their opening statement yesterday — and describe both defendants as motivated by religious extremism.
Mackay told jurors at Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London that prosecutors would characterize Abdulla and Asha as “terrorists motivated by their belief in a fundamental form of Islam.”
The Iraqi-raised Abdulla and Asha, a Jordanian, worked in British hospitals from 2004 until the time of their arrests.
Two poorly designed car bombs were abandoned outside West End nightspots on June 29, last year and failed to detonate. They were discovered only accidentally — one when paramedics spotted it emitting smoke, the other after it had been towed away by traffic enforcement officials. Police said both contained drums of fuel, packs of nails, timers and detonators.
The following day, an attempted suicide car-bomb attack on Glasgow International Airport caused only one death — that of attacker Kafeel Ahmed, who suffered lethal burns while trying to ignite a propane-based bomb aboard his vehicle.
Indian-born Ahmed was the alleged driver of the sports-utility vehicle that rammed into security barriers outside the airport, while Abdulla was the alleged passenger. Police suspect that Abdulla and Ahmed also delivered the West End car bombs.
Asha was arrested hours after the Glasgow attack while driving with his wife on an English highway, and police subsequently identified him as a likely ringleader based on cellphone and other electronic records.
Abdulla and Asha face identical charges of conspiring to commit murder and cause explosions. Both deny the charges.
Asha’s father and brother, who live in Amman, Jordan, have rejected police descriptions of him as a Muslim extremist, and insist he was a political and religious moderate hoping to pursue a career in Britain as a neurosurgeon.
Mackay warned the jury to reach its verdict “based solely on the evidence it hears as it is given in this court, and not based on any prejudices, beliefs or personal opinions.” He predicted that the jurors “will find it an interesting case to try.”
The case is expected to run for eight to 10 weeks.
So far, only one person — Ahmed’s younger brother Sabeel, also a doctor practicing in Britain — has been convicted in relation to the attacks. He served half of an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to concealing information about the attacks and was deported to India in April.
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