AIRLINER bomb plot ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali has been jailed for life with a minimum of 40 years, for planning what judge Mr Justice Henriques said was an atrocity comparable with the September 11 attacks.
British-born extremist Ali, the leader of an al Qaida-inspired terror cell, planned to detonate home-made liquid bombs on board flights bound for major North American cities, Woolwich Crown Court heard.
Ali, of Walthamstow, east London, was found guilty, along with Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain, of conspiracy to murder on a mass scale by detonating bombs on airliners following the largest-ever counter-terrorism operation in the UK.
Trial judge Mr Justice Henriques said the gang was planning a “grave” terrorist atrocity which would have been comparable to the September 11 attacks.
He said they would have succeeded without the intervention of the police and security services.
Mr Justice Henriques said the trio were convicted of “the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction”.
He said: “The intention was to perpetrate a terrorist outrage that would stand alongside the events of September 11, 2001, in history.”
The judge added the airline bomb plot had “reached an advanced stage in its development”.
He said the men had “sufficient chemicals for 20 home-made detonators of commercial strength”.
“I’m satisfied that there is every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded, but for the intervention of the police and the security service,” he said.
Referring to a video of a mock explosion on board an airliner, Mr Justice Henriques said: “I could only conclude the chance of an aircraft surviving such an explosion at altitude was remote.
“Had this conspiracy not been interrupted, a massive loss of life would almost certainly have resulted – and, if the detonation was over land, the number of victims would have been greater still.”
The judge said the emails at the centre of the retrial – which were unavailable to prosecutors in the first trial last year – “are a vital source of information as to the control, progress and scope of this conspiracy.
“They establish beyond question the ultimate control of this conspiracy lay in Pakistan.”
He said others in Pakistan controlled, monitored and funded the airliner bomb plot.
Ali, Sarwar and Hussain were “high-level executives within this country,” the judge added.
