This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/uk/7660750.stm
The article has changed 15 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| Doctors on trial over car bombs | Doctors on trial over car bombs |
| (20 minutes later) | |
| Two NHS doctors plotted "indiscriminate and wholesale" murder with car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow Airport, Woolwich Crown Court has heard. | |
| Prosecutors say Bilal Abdulla was in a burning car filled with explosives which rammed the Glasgow airport terminal building in June last year. | Prosecutors say Bilal Abdulla was in a burning car filled with explosives which rammed the Glasgow airport terminal building in June last year. |
| Two days earlier, he and Kafeel Ahmed, now dead, are said to have left two gas-laden cars in London's West End. | Two days earlier, he and Kafeel Ahmed, now dead, are said to have left two gas-laden cars in London's West End. |
| Mr Abdulla, 29, and Mohammad Asha, 27, deny plotting a terrorist campaign. | |
| Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC told the court that the men were motivated by revenge for how they believed the UK was treating Muslims in conflicts around the world. | |
| "Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles. No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas. | |
| "These men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale. | |
| "By the carrying out of a series of explosions, with no warning as to where the next strike would occur, the terrorists knew the public would be gripped by fear. They would not know where the terrorists would strike next." | |
| London bombs | |
| The trial heard that two remotely-controlled car bombs left in central London in the early hours of Friday 29 June would have killed many young people who were out in the area's bars and clubs. | |
| Large quantities of nails had been added to both vehicles to add to their destructive effect, said Mr Laidlaw. | |
| "The repeated attempts to detonate the vehicles failed but that was not through any lack of effort by the bombers. It was no more than good fortune that nobody died." | |
| The attack on Glasgow Airport, the court heard, had come in the wake of the London attempts. | |
| The men had two more cars at their disposal - and enough material to make bombs for each. | |
| But Mr Laidlaw told the jury that Dr Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed loaded gas cylinders into the Jeep, along with petrol bombs, because they wanted to kill holidaymakers and themselves in a spectacular attack on the terminal building. | |
| NHS doctors | |
| Dr Abdulla, an Iraqi citizen who was born in the UK, was arrested after the burning Jeep failed to detonate at Glasgow's main terminal building on 30 June last year. | |
| At the time of his arrest, he was a junior house officer at the Royal Alexandra in nearby Paisley. | |
| Dr Asha, a neurologist based in Staffordshire, supported the plot by being a key figure behind the scenes, the trial heard. He was arrested the same day on the M6 motorway in Cheshire. | |
| Indian-born Kafeel Ahmed, who drove the car used to attack the airport, died from his burns five weeks later. |