WALTHAM FOREST: Eight deny plotting to blow up transatlantic flights

3:00pm Thursday 3rd April 2008

EIGHT men on trial over an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners planned to cause deaths on an "almost unprecedented scale", a court has heard.

The defendants, including four from Walthamstow and one from Leyton, stand accused of conspiring with others and endangering aircraft bound for north America.

Prosecutor Peter Wright said the victims of the planned suicide bombing would be an "unwitting civilian population".

He claimed the men planned to inflict heavy casualties, "all in the name of Islam".

"These men were, we say, indifferent to the carnage that was likely to ensue, he said.

"Some of the men you see in the dock are those who were prepared to sacrifice their own lives.

"They were prepared to board an aircraft with the necessary ingredients and equipment to construct and detonate a device that would bring about not only the loss of their own lives, but also all of those who happened by chance to be taking the same journey." "The disaster they contemplated was not long off," he added.

The defendants are Ahmed Abdullah Ali, aka Ahmed Ali Khan, 27, of Prospect Hill, Walthamstow; Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow; Waheed Zaman, 23, of Queen's Road, Walthamstow; Ibrahim Savant, 27, of Folkestone Road, Walthamstow; and Tanvir Hussain, of Nottingham Road, Leyton.

Also accused are Assad Sarwar, 24, and Umar Islam, aka Brian Young, 29, both of High Wycombe, and Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking.

The prosecution described Ali, Sarwar and Mohammed Gulzar as co-ordinators of the plot to target seven aircraft.

The men all deny conspiring to murder others and endangering planes bound for the US and Canada.

They were arrested during a series of raids in August 2006.

The prosecution counsel opened its case against them at Woolwich Crown Court this afternoon.

The trial continues.

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