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Friends of 7/7 bombers cleared of helping plan attacks
Paul Cheston28 Apr 2009
Three British Muslims were cleared today of helping the 7/7 suicide bombers attack London.
But two of the men, Waheed Ali and Mohammed Shakil, were convicted of being trained in terrorism by al Qaeda in Pakistan and will be sentenced tomorrow.
Ali, Shakil and Sadeer Saleem admitted being friends with the fanatics who killed 52 people in July 2005. But they said they had wanted to kill British and US troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, not ordinary men, women and children in Britain.
What jurors did not know was that Ali was also linked to Omar Khyam, ringleader of the plot to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre. He was present when 7/7 bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer held meetings with Khyam.
Security services monitoring Khyam secretly watched his meetings with the July 7 bombers and bugged conversations about plans to fight in Afghanistan on four occasions in early 2004. They photographed the group, including Ali, meeting at a McDonald's car park and filmed them in a London street. Despite their links with Khyam, MI5 dismissed Khan and his group as “peripheral figures” and never fully investigated their activities.
Mr Justice Gross had ruled that the jury would have been prejudiced against the defendants if they knew Khyam's real identity and he was referred to as “Ausman”.
Terror links: Waheed Ali with suicide bomber Khan and Bluewater plotter Khyam
The verdicts at Kingston crown court are a blow to anti-terrorist detectives as Ali, Shakil and Saleem are the only suspects to stand trial for the 7/7 attacks. They had been accused of making a reconnaissance mission to view potential targets and were all linked to two bomb factories in Leeds.
But Ali, 25, Shakil, 31, and Saleem, 27, all from Beeston, insisted their dealings with the suicide bombers were innocent. Ali said suicide was forbidden in the Koran and boasted that had he wanted to join: “You would never have caught me. Not MI5, not MI6, not anyone could have stopped me.”
The three-month trial — which followed another that ended when the jury was unable to agree verdicts — has been watched via a TV link by 7/7 survivors and families of victims at a secret location.
Ali and Shakil admitted training with Khan in al Qaeda camps in Pakistan. They were found guilty of conspiracy to attend a place used for terrorist training. The prosecution said that eight months before 7/7 Ali, Shakil and Saleem had embarked on a two-day mission to scout potential targets. They met suicide bombers Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain and allegedly gathered information as they moved around Tube stations and landmarks.
But the defendants said they were just tourists and had visited Ali's sister in the East End. All their information was said to have been passed on to Khan who had already made a video of himself saying goodbye to his baby daughter Maryam. It was recorded before his last visit to Pakistan, where he had intended to martyr himself before he switched tactics. In a second video Khan introduces his daughter to her “uncles” — Lindsay, Hussain and Waheed Ali. Ali went to Pakistan with Khan in 2001 and trained in Kashmir for two weeks shortly before the 9/11 attacks. “I just went with the flow, everything just kept going with a sort of snowball effect,” he said.
In 2004, Ali returned to Pakistan with Khan and Tanweer.
He was so close to Khan a text message was found on the suicide bomber's mobile phone in the rubble of the Edgware Road blast. It read: “Gates of memories I will neva (sic) close. How much I miss you no one knows. Tears in my eyes will wipe away, but the love in my heart for you will always stay.”
A week after 7/7 police found a note written by Saleem at the Iqra bookshop in Leeds. It read: “Without doubt I'm returning to my creator, when I am shaheed (martyr) as a Muslim. I do not care in what way I receive my death.”
Reader views (9)
"He was so close to Khan a text message was found on the suicide bomber's mobile phone in the rubble of the Edgware Road blast. It read: “Gates of memories I will neva (sic) close. How much I miss you no one knows. Tears in my eyes will wipe away, but the love in my heart for you will always stay". Were they gay?
- Kev, London-UK, 29/04/2009 06:58
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My ancestors lived and worked in this area 400 years ago I would bet they are turning in their graves now ,with the load of Yobs living there now, you have a lot to answer for Mr Brown and your intellectual friends.
- David., Chertsey.UK., 28/04/2009 18:05
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Proving only that Britains judicial system is not fit for purpose, the safeguards which may be appropriate for the civil criminal court systems, are counter productive when applied to terrorist trials, as the repeated failures of security services cases demonstrate. But what can you expect when we have a government which is not fit for purpose.
- Frank, Dorchester Dorset, 28/04/2009 16:59
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Personally i find it a bit worrying when some people like "Stan" seen to think people can be guilty just because of their religious belief!
And by the way - DNA evidence is not infallible
- Mike, London, 28/04/2009 16:41
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Will somebody explain what these people are doing here?What use?And why we can't get rid of them?
- William Isaac, London England, 28/04/2009 16:31
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How were they found not guilty ??
- Stan Shaw, DeLand Florida USA, 28/04/2009 14:56
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Isn't it great that we as readers of a great London newspaper have access to evidence that a jury could not be trusted with? God forbid that a jury in a bombing conspiracy trial should have evidence linking the defendants to a convicted bomber. But, still, the jury didn't believe DNA evidence contradicting the defendants' claims? Have we reached a state of "OJ syndrome", where the police and security services are so discredited by racial profiling that a jury will not convict despite DNA evidence?
- Bloke, London, 28/04/2009 13:52
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The official version of what happened on 7/7 is a pack of lies. We are being duped like fools into believing in a non-existent "terrorist" plot so that we will accept a totalitarian state.
- Neil, London, London UK, 28/04/2009 13:44
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Not much of a result for all that time and public money spent, not to mention Gordon's extra laws. Doesn't say a lot for the security services 'evidence'.
- Alan In Bow, London, 28/04/2009 13:17
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