Police free woman in car bomb plot case

Guardian Unlimited ^ | July 13, 2007 | Haroon Siddique

[TexKat]

A woman arrested in connection with the alleged London and Glasgow car bomb plots has been released without charge. Marwa Asha, 27, was arrested with her husband, Mohammed Asha, 26, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, on the M6 motorway in Cheshire on June 30. The arrests came hours after a burning jeep was driven into the Glasgow airport terminal.

The attempted attack followed the discovery of two car bombs in London that had failed to detonate.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said the woman was released at 7.40pm yesterday.

Muhammad Haneef, an Indian doctor who was arrested in Australia on July 2 in connection with the attacks, may also be released today, according to The Australian newspaper.

Australian police today dropped their application to extend the detention of Mr Haneef, who has been held for 11 days, leaving them 12 hours to question him before he must either be charged or released.

They have found no evidence to charge him, according to The Australian.

[TexKat]

A family photo made by a cellphone of Mohammed Jamil Asha holding his baby boy Anas, left, with his mother in law Eslah, center, and his wife Marwa Da'na, right, made available in Amman, Jordan Tuesday July 3, 2007. Mohammed Asha and his wife were among those arrested by British anti-terrorism police hunting those behind attempted car bombings, a police source said on Monday July 2, 2007. Asha qualified as a doctor in 2004 in Jordan and is also a registered medical practitioner in Britain. British media said Asha worked at a hospital in central England. (AP Photo/Family HO)

Woman arrested after UK attacks released

[TexKat]

Ping

Woman arrested after UK attacks released

[TexKat]

Report: No Evidence on Indian Doctor

Australian police suspect an Indian doctor has links to last month’s failed bomb attacks in Britain but have found no evidence to charge him with a crime, according to news reports Friday.

Despite a massive investigation, authorities have failed to uncover any evidence with which to charge Muhammad Haneef, 27, but do not want to release him because they suspect he “provided support to the terrorist organization responsible for the terrorist acts in London and/or Glasgow,” according to government documents cited by The Australian, one of Australia’s most respected newspapers.

“If Mr. Haneef was released from detention it would be more difficult for authorities to effectively monitor his movements and who he communicates with, either here or overseas,” the newspaper quoted the documents as saying.

The Australian Federal Police refused to comment on the report, saying the “investigation is ongoing and it is not appropriate to comment any further.”

Haneef, an Indian national who emigrated to Australia from Britain last year, is a distant cousin of Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, two suspects held in Britain in connection with two bomb-laden cars found in London on June 29 and an attack on a Glasgow airport the next day.

Haneef told police of his family ties to the Ahmed brothers, with whom he shared a house in the British city of Liverpool for up to two years. He has also allegedly acknowledged having extensive phone conversations with Kafeel Ahmed, but denies any link to the failed attacks, the newspaper said.

The New York Times also reported on its Web site early Friday that Australian police have established links between Haneef and the other suspects, but they’re not strong enough to support charges.

But theTimes said that Australian investigators, whom it did not further identify, as well as police affidavits viewed by the newspaper have offered the first official details about the contacts between Haneef and some of the London suspects.

The Times reported that investigators were trying to differentiate those contacts that are honest relationships from more sinister ones.

The Times said that in the affidavits, the Australian police say that Haneef visited Sabeel Ahmed in Cambridge, England, twice in 2004; and that he had corresponded with Ahmed “during on-line chats,” the last time earlier this year.

Haneef has been held without charge since July 2 when he was arrested in the eastern Australian city of Brisbane while trying to leave the country on a one-way ticket to India.

Haneef claims he was rushing to leave Australia to visit his wife and newborn baby in Bangalore, India, but the documents reportedly said officials believe “Mr. Haneef has not been entirely truthful in relation to information he has provided to his attempt to leave Australia.”

Under Australia’s tough counterterrorism laws, authorities can continue to hold Haneef with the permission of a magistrate. All court hearings related to the case are closed.

Federal police are expected to return to the Brisbane Magistrates Court in Queensland state on Friday to request a further 72 hour detention.

Police plan to use the extra time to continue their examination of materials seized in raids on Haneef’s home and workplace, including two computer hard-drives, two mobile phones, two flash drives, a camera and more than 1,600 photographs, the newspaper said.

On Thursday in London, Marwa Asha, 27, the only woman arrested by police investigating the botched London and Glasgow terrorist attacks was released without charge, British police said.

She was arrested with her husband, Dr. Mohammed Asha, 26, of Newcastle-under-Lyme on the M6 highway in Cheshire on June 30. Police declined to provide any other information about her case.

She and her husband were among the eight suspects detained after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London on June 29 and two men crashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas canisters and gasoline into the Glasgow airport the next day.

The other suspects who remain in custody or under police guard include Kafeel Ahmed, who is in a Scottish hospital with critical burns after allegedly ramming the Jeep into the airport. His alleged accomplice in the Jeep, Bilal Abdullah, is a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq.

Sabeel Ahmed, Haneef, and two other suspects being questioned in London that are unidentified trainee doctors, aged 25 and 28.

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070713/ap/d8qbfm4g0.html

[Steve_Seattle]

“Alleged” attacks? Car bombs are found, a burning vehicle is driven into an airport terminal, yet the paper says the attacks are “alleged.”

[TexKat]

Husband guilty but wife freed in terrorism trial

Fri Jul 13, 2007 3:15PM BST LONDON (Reuters) - A British man was convicted on a terrorism-related charge on Friday but his Dutch wife walked free after the jury rejected evidence purporting to show she had urged him to become a "martyr" for Islam.

Yassin Nassari, 28, was found guilty of possessing documents likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, but cleared of a graver charge of possessing articles for terrorist purposes.

After a six-week trial at the Old Bailey, his Dutch wife Bouchra El-Hor, 24, was acquitted of failing to disclose information to police that she knew or believed could have prevented Nassari from committing a terrorist act.

The charges related to files on the hard drive of Nassari's computer -- including plans for building a missile -- which were found when the couple were arrested at Luton airport in May 2006.

PIVOTAL TO THE CASE

Pivotal to the case against El-Hor was a letter from her to Nassari in which she wrote she was proud of him and happy that Allah had granted him the chance to be a martyr in the cause of jihad, or holy war.

She told him that jihad was "compulsory" and she wished she could accompany him. But the two must "separate for the sake of Allah" and she would raise their young son to be a righteous Muslim and "follow in his father's footsteps".

Asked by her defence counsel if this meant she wanted her son to become a suicide bomber, El-Hor replied: "Of course not." She told the jury the letter was a work of imagination, based on a story, and had never been meant for her husband to see.

Evidence discovered on Nassari's computer included jihadist material and instructions on how to build rocket-propelled missiles of a type used by the Palestinian group Hamas, together with information on explosives such as land mines, TNT and nitro-glycerine.

Nassari told the court he had lent his computer to another man while in Syria, and was unaware of the files.

It was the fourth terrorism trial in just over a week to conclude in Britain, where security services say militant Islamists pose a continuous and growing threat.

The spate of cases coincides with investigations into three failed car bombings in London and Scotland late last month, which authorities suspect may be linked to al Qaeda.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Federal police are expected to return to the Brisbane Magistrates Court in Queensland state on Friday to request a further 72 hour detention.

Well,...that's good...at least.

[mutley]

“Alleged” attacks? Car bombs are found, a burning vehicle is driven into an airport terminal, yet the paper says the attacks are “alleged.”

Funny, ain't it? A guy gets out of a car, that just drove into the airport entrance, himself on fire, with a backseat full of propane tanks causing a raging inferno, and he is the "alleged" perpetrator, in an "alleged" attack.

[SunkenCiv]

Muhammad Haneef, an Indian doctor

s/b

Muhammad Haneef, a Moslem quack and terrorist

[JHT]

““Alleged” attacks? Car bombs are found, a burning vehicle is driven into an airport terminal, yet the paper says the attacks are “alleged.””

People have been arrested, so proceedings are underway and the Contempt of Court Act 1981 has effect. Newspaper editors have to be quite careful what they print under those circumstances.

There has been no trial so everything is still alledged, in legal terms.

[ariamne]

She told the jury the letter was a work of imagination, based on a story, and had never been meant for her husband to see.

Lying is like breathing to these plug-uglies. Who does she think she's fooling? It's insulting to think that she believes we "kuffir" will be taken in by this phoney story

[TexKat]

Detainee doctor ‘in a hurry’ to leave

July 14, 2007 01:27am

DETAINED Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef told an associate he was in a hurry to leave Australia shortly after the foiled bombing attacks in the UK.

Dr Haneef made no mention of visiting his ailing wife and newborn child in an email, Fairfax newspapers reported today.

The revelation comes as the federal police yesterday withdrew a request for an extension of time to question Dr Haneef, opting instead to recommence his interrogation.

An affidavit presented to Brisbane Magistrates Court says federal agents suspect the doctor “has not been entirely truthful about his departure”.

Dr Haneef told authorities he was on his way to Bangalore to visit his wife, who had just given birth, after being arrested with a one-way ticket at Brisbane airport on July 2.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source told the Herald Dr Haneef sent an email after the bombings to an associate saying “he had to leave in a hurry”.

“He made no mention of his sick wife or child,” the source said.

However, counter-terrorism officials say the contents of the email are not enough to lay charges with, and much hinged on the interview, which began about 3pm yesterday.

Police have 12 hours to question Dr Haneef before they must either release him or charge him.

The doctor is related to two men detained in the UK over the plot, Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed, who allegedly drove a Jeep Cherokee into Glasgow airport.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22072482-5001028,00.html

[Steve_Seattle]

"There has been no trial so everything is still alledged, in legal terms."

"Alleged" applies to the suspects, not to the fact that bombs were found and a flaming car was driven into the airport terminal.

[JHT]

“”Alleged” applies to the suspects, not to the fact that bombs were found and a flaming car was driven into the airport terminal.”

In the article, it was the existence of a wider plot that was alleged, not that the incidents occured. Still very much under investigation to what extent the perpetrators were working alone or had outside assistance.

[El Gato]

Alleged" applies to the suspects, not to the fact that bombs were found and a flaming car was driven into the airport terminal.

Not exactly the article says "alleged London and Glasgow car bomb plots", so it's the plots that are alleged, not her or any other particular persons participation in such plots.

Given the car bombs, the flaming Jeep loaded with Propane tanks I'd say the evidence for a plot is pretty strong.

"Innocent until proven Guilty" applies to government and the legal process, not the writing or speach of individuals. That was once known as Freedom of the Press and Freedome of Speech. I guess those no longer exist.