Nine Islamists, who admitted an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to bomb London’s stock exchange and set up a militant training camp in Pakistan, were sentenced at a British court to a total of 120 years’ imprisonment on Thursday.
The men, mainly British nationals and all with Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds, were arrested in 2010 after security services overheard two of them discussing how to build a pipe bomb based on instructions in a downloaded al-Qaeda magazine.
The plan had been to plant a potentially lethal pipe bomb in a toilet in the London Stock Exchange, with the intention of causing “terror, property damage and economic damage,” a judge said during sentencing at Woolwich Crown Court in south London.
TRAINING
Three others had been trying to raise funds to build a madrasah, or Islamic school, in Kashmir where British Muslims could go to receive firearms training.
“This was a serious, long-term venture in terrorism ... to establish and maintain a terrorist training facility ... to recruit young British Muslims to go there and train, thereafter being available to commit terrorism abroad and at home,” the judge said.
The men had also considered sending a letter bomb to the US embassy in London and other addresses in the capital, as well as planting bombs in pubs, prosecutors said.
The convictions come just months before London hosts the Olympic Games, where Britain is spending more than ￡1 billion (US$1.6 billion) on security.
INDEPENDENT
The judge said the men were “lone wolf terrorists,” acting as an independent group using al-Qaeda material distributed over the Internet.
The nine men waved and gave a thumbs-up gesture to supporters in the court gallery as they were led away.
Britain has been a target for many years, with its role in Iraq and Afghanistan as a leading US ally increasing the threat from Islamic militants.
In July 2005, the day after London was awarded this summer’s Games, four young British Islamists killed 52 commuters in suicide bomb attacks on the city’s transport network.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
RSS