Airport attacker dies with his secrets

The Indian-born engineer, 27, died in hospital on Thursday, 34 days after suffering 90 per cent burns during the attempted attack on Glasgow Airport.

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More than £150,000 had been spent on treatment in a desperate attempt to save his life.

Ahmed is believed to have driven a Jeep Cherokee, which burst into flames, into the Scottish airport terminal.

Anti-terror police, who were guarding his hospital room round the clock, had hoped to question him about the planned car bomb attack on a nightclub in London's

Haymarket, the day before. Officers said they believed he could have held a "wealth of intelligence" about terror contacts in Britain, India and Australia - and about the background to the alleged bomb plot.

Shocking TV images of a badlyburned Ahmed struggling with police and then lying on the floor as he was handcuffed were seen around the world.

Passengers recorded on mobile telephones how an off-duty policeman used a fire extinguisher to try to save him.

Ahmed was given little chance of survival and there was criticism of his £5,000-a-day treatment, which included skin grafts.

It is unclear whether taxpayers will have to cover the bill for the return of the body to his family in India.

A Scottish health official yesterday defended the treatment saying it reflected the "value placed on human life" in Britain.

The bomb plot, anti-terror officers say, is believed to have been planned several months in advance with the vital input of Ahmed's engineering skills.

Before setting fire to himself at the airport on June 30, he had warned his family in Bangalore he was going to be working on a secret "global warming" project - thought to be a reference to the airport attack.

Significantly, shortly after the two car bombs packed with petrol, nails and gas cylinders failed to explode in Haymarket, he had telephoned his parents in India to tell them an "earlier presentation" had flopped.

He asked them to "pray for me this time".

Last May, during his final trip to Bangalore, he told relatives: "I am involved in a large-scale confidential project. It is about global warming. I cannot reveal the details. The project has to be started in the United Kingdom."

In his call hours before the airport attack, he had told his mother Dr Zakia Ahmed and sister Sadia: "I told you earlier that some time in the future I will be inaccessible for a week. The time has come now."

Police are still piecing together the background of the Glasgow based engineer, who had a PhD in design and technology.

He studied at Queen's University in Belfast between 2001 and 2004, gaining his PhD at Anglia Polytechnic University in Cambridge.

Detectives are investigating whether he was part of a cell planning attacks in Australia and the U.S. - and where and how he was converted to terrorism.

He and his brother Sabeel, 26, who is accused of not disclosing information that could have helped police arrest a suspected terrorist, had applied to work in Australia but were turned down.

A second man in the airport Jeep - Iraqi doctor Bilal Talal Samad Abdullah - has been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions.