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'Dangerous' doctor jailed for 32 years over nightclub bomb
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor17.12.08
An NHS doctor was today condemned as an extremist "bigot" and jailed for at least 32 years for plotting to murder hundreds of people in terrorist car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, was given the minimum term as a judge at Woolwich crown court warned he remained a "very dangerous man" whose radical religious and political beliefs made him a continuing threat to the public.
Today's sentence follows the doctor's conviction yesterday over his role in last year's failed car bombing attacks on London's Tiger Tiger night club and Glasgow airport.
Abdulla, a British-born Iraqi, carried out his mission in revenge for the invasion of Iraq, but passing sentence today Mr Justice Mackay said his actions were also motivated by a hatred of Western culture and his radical Islamist views.
Handing him two life terms with a minimum 32-year tariff, the judge added that Abdulla was a "religious extremist and a bigot" who - with his accomplice Kafeel Ahmed - had wanted to murder innocent civilians on an "indiscriminate basis. All of the evidence makes you a very dangerous man, you pose a high risk of serious harm to the British public in your present state of mind," the judge said.
"That fact plus the circumstances of the offences themselves means the only possible sentence on each of these two counts is a life sentence."
Speaking about the West End attacks, in which car bombs were left outside Tiger Tiger and nearby Cockspur Street, the judge said the men had chosen the club because it was symbolic, busy and extremely vulnerable.
He added: "The club represented everything that you and Ahmed held in contempt and despised about Western culture: drink, association between the sexes, and music. Your will documents both showed that.
"Your murderous intent was best shown by the obstructing of the safety mechanisms on two of the cylinders and by the 800-plus nails in one car and 1,000 in the second, designed to do nothing else but constitute a deadly form of shrapnel to maim, injure and kill."
Mr Justice Mackay said Abdulla, who showed no emotion as he was sentenced, and Ahmed had immediately sought to carry out a second deadly attack after the London bombings failed as the "grand finale" of their conspiracy.
He dismissed the doctor's claim that he had not intended to cause fatalities as "simply absurd" and "entirely false" and warned instead he had been "eager to kill" and inflict mass casualties.
The judge said Abdulla held a "perverted" and "distorted" view of Islam, including the justification of attacks on civilians.
Reader views (3)
Hopefully, he will serve his time in Glasgow's infamous Barlinnie prison, the grimmest building in Scotland and once described as Europe's worst jail outside Russia.
This Victorian jail in Glasgow, which has houses some of Scotland's most violent men, will no doubt, welcome him.
- Murray, Bristol UK
Life should mean life.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
Why only 32 years?
- P I Staker, London
