By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
LONDON, April 1 -- The trial of eight British Muslims, charged in an alleged terrorist plot that led to permanent changes in air travel for hundreds of millions of people, begins this week in a London courtroom.
The men, most of them in their 20s and of Pakistani heritage, face charges of conspiracy to murder for allegedly plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up as many as 10 commercial jetliners flying from Britain to the United States.
Authorities accuse the men, arrested in August 2006 in Britain's largest-ever anti-terrorism investigation, of planning to kill thousands of people in what would have been the most ambitious terrorist attack since Sept. 11, 2001.
Just as foiled "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, another British Muslim, turned shoes into objects of suspicion at airport security checkpoints, the airliner case has led to permanent restrictions on carrying liquids or gels onto commercial airliners. It also has cost airlines, airports, police, duty-free shops and other businesses hundreds of millions of dollars.
"This has affected all our lives," said Sajjan Gohel, a security analyst in London.
The defendants have pleaded not guilty. Their trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday with jury selection and could take as long as a year. Because British law severely restricts release of information related to criminal cases, full details of the government's case will start to emerge only when the trial begins.
The security scare began in the early hours of Aug. 10, 2006, when British authorities conducted simultaneous raids on dozens of homes and businesses across England.
Police and security officials immediately announced that they believed the plot involved a previously unknown method of attack: smuggling liquid explosives in plastic sports-drink bottles and separate detonators, then assembling them on board.
"It could have happened within weeks," said a senior British security official, speaking last week on the condition of anonymity. "They had the people, they were in the final stages of preparing the devices. Yeah, they were close."
The official called the plot "a sophisticated piece of work" that might have killed "2,500 or 3,000" passengers. If the planes had blown up over water, the official said, evidence would have been lost to the ocean depths and investigators might not have immediately been able to determine what kind of bombs were used.
During their investigation, police said they searched 69 locations, arrested 21 people (several were released without charge) and confiscated 400 computers, 200 cellphones and 8,000 computer-related items such as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs. They said they also confiscated several videotaped suicide messages known as martyrdom videos.
Police said they had been conducting audio and video surveillance for months on a London apartment they called a bomb factory, where they said they observed the alleged plotters experimenting with bomb components.
In subsequent indictment papers, police said they confiscated a variety of evidence they said was intended for bombmaking, including empty sports-drink bottles, batteries, syringes, food coloring, an amp-volt reader, a pH reader, electronic scales, a digital thermometer, bulbs and wiring, hydrogen peroxide and citric acid.
At the time of the arrests, police said they rounded up suspects sooner than they had wanted because the unexpected arrest in Pakistan of a key suspect, Rashid Rauf, 25, might have exposed their investigation.
Pakistani police later dropped terrorism charges against Rauf, but British authorities sought his extradition in connection with the April 2002 murder of his uncle in Birmingham.
In December 2007, Rauf escaped from police custody in Islamabad. Three police officers were arrested and nine were fired following his escape. He is still missing.
News of the August 2006 raids in Britain brought air traffic in the United States and Europe to a virtual standstill for days and caused lasting economic impact.
According to the Association of European Airlines, on three U.K. carriers alone -- British Airways, Virgin and BMI -- more than 2,300 British flights were canceled in a week and more than 300,000 passengers missed flights. British Airways alone lost more than $200 million because of the disruption, company officials said.
Scotland Yard officials said the security scare cost more than $20 million in overtime and other police costs in the six weeks after the raids.
Air passengers in the United States and Europe are still allowed only small amounts of liquids or gels, which must be carried in see-through plastic bags. Authorities in other parts of the world also established new restrictions on those items.
Mark Mann, a spokesman for the British Airports Authority, which runs seven U.K. airports, said the plot has cost those airports at least $40 million to add security guards, new security-screening lanes and equipment.
Keith Spinks, secretary general of the European Travel Retail Council, said the initial security scare cost duty-free shops and other airport retailers about $475 million in the last quarter of 2006.
The costs to passengers, in time lost and goods confiscated, have also been significant. Airports are still confiscating massive volumes of items from passengers who forget or do not understand the rules, said Craig Bradbrook of the Airports Council International, a trade group that represents most of the world's airports. At the Zurich airport alone, he said, authorities confiscate about $35,000 worth of alcohol, perfume and cologne every day.
"Passengers have generally accepted the new security rules," said James Fremantle of the Air Transport Users Council, a British-based passenger advocacy group. "But we do wonder if passengers' patience will end at some point."
Special correspondents Karla Adam in London and Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
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