Here we have it, the triumphant verdict. Five found guilty of plotting multiple terrorist scenarios "bigger than 9/11."
The trial did bring out a few notable facts about the intimate interconnections between the 7/7 cell and the convicted Bluewater plotters as they've been called. But what has come out in the trial is only the tip of an iceberg.
Part of that iceberg was going to be included in The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, 2006), but was effectively censored under the court order which forbade discussion of anything which might prejudice the crevice trial. However, now that the trial is over, one is permitted to speak somewhat freely about material that had previously been redacted from the text of the book that is publicly available.
The entire approach of the mainstream press and security experts has been to view the Bluewater and 7/7 plots as, perhaps, connected; and that perhaps the police and security services bungled up when they didn't take the connections seriously enough.
Unfortunately, evidence from security sources (much of which is widely available in the public record but oddly ignored even now) suggests slightly more -- that 7/7 was precisely integral to the multiple plots being prepared by a single multi-celled radical network, members of which were apprehended by authorities in Operation Crevice. Not only that, but that MI5 investigators on the ground were screaming at their superiors to prioritize Mohammed Sidique Khan and others on a "higher-level of investigation", but were ignored, consistent with a long-term British policy of protecting certain radical groups operating (freely to this day) under the authority of exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.
More later.
Part of that iceberg was going to be included in The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, 2006), but was effectively censored under the court order which forbade discussion of anything which might prejudice the crevice trial. However, now that the trial is over, one is permitted to speak somewhat freely about material that had previously been redacted from the text of the book that is publicly available.
The entire approach of the mainstream press and security experts has been to view the Bluewater and 7/7 plots as, perhaps, connected; and that perhaps the police and security services bungled up when they didn't take the connections seriously enough.
Unfortunately, evidence from security sources (much of which is widely available in the public record but oddly ignored even now) suggests slightly more -- that 7/7 was precisely integral to the multiple plots being prepared by a single multi-celled radical network, members of which were apprehended by authorities in Operation Crevice. Not only that, but that MI5 investigators on the ground were screaming at their superiors to prioritize Mohammed Sidique Khan and others on a "higher-level of investigation", but were ignored, consistent with a long-term British policy of protecting certain radical groups operating (freely to this day) under the authority of exiled preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed.
More later.
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Marshmallows with the Mudjahadin
30.04.2007 16:36
I thought there was a lot of comic pathos to the Bluewater bombers' defence statements. It's hard not to be reminded of the blundering teenage jihadists off of Monkey Dust.
These are some select quotes from the BBC's website coverage:
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The 20-year-old [Shujah Mahmood, later found not guilty] struggled to answer some of the questions being put to him.
At one point he recounted what he said was a miserable trip to Pakistan that led ultimately to the training camp in the Malakand region, near the Afghan border.
He did not have the right clothing for the trip high in the mountains, was unfit and thought many of the training exercises, such as firing AK-47 rifles, were stupid.
"The whole experience was really bad for me, I was on a downer and got depressed," he said.
"I was really despondent... I used to start crying because I missed my mum a lot."
Baroness Kennedy said: "Some people might think you were a soft boy from Crawley, was it what you were expecting?"
"No. I thought it would be marshmallows and the whole camping thing and Ray Mears bushcraft. But it was the worst experience I ever experienced," he replied.
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[Waheed Mahmood] also suggested pitching a burger van on a street corner and selling food laced with poison, and then just vanishing from the area.
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Anthony Garcia was very different from his co-defendants. He was not of Pakistani origin and grew up with mainly white friends. He enjoyed basketball, the music of rapper Tupac Shakur and dreamt of becoming a male model.
Asked why he had changed his name to Anthony Garcia, he said: "Modelling. If you have a name like Anthony Garcia it had a better ring to it in the modelling world."
--
Norville B
Bliar Said An Investigation "Would Be A Ludcrous Distraction"
01.05.2007 19:41
Additional information about Operation Crevice will be added in due course. In the meantime, please find below transcripts of statements made on behalf of the defendants at the end of the trial and Crevice articles of note.
The July 7th Truth Campaign believes that the complaints and allegations made by the defendants in their statement should be taken very seriously, especially in the light of the numerous miscarriages of justice in cases of alleged Irish terrorism.
The end of the Crevice trial has resulted in renewed calls for an Independent Public Inquiry into the events of 7th July 2005. J7 wish to reiterate the point - as previously made by Amnesty International, the Law Society of England and Wales and Geraldine Finucane, the widow of murdered Irish Human Rights lawyer, Patrick Finucane - that under the Inquiries Act 2005, which passed into law on 7 June 2005, full control of all inquiries is held by the executive, meaning there can be no such thing as a truly 'independent' or 'public' inquiry.
Statements made at the end of the Crevice Trial
* Transcript of Imran Khan's statement on behalf of the 5 men convicted in the Operation Crevice trial - includes a statement by J7 on the renewed calls for a public inquiry into the events of 7th July 2005.
* Transcript of Imran Khan's statement on behalf of Nabeel Hussain, who was aquitted of all charges
* Partial transcript of the statement made by Tayab Ali, lawyer for Salahuddin Amin, who was convicted in the Crevice trial.
Crevice Articles of Note
* Free - the man accused of being an al-Qaida leader, aka 'Q', Guardian article by Ian Cobain and Jeevan Vasagar about Mohammed Quayyum Khan, aka 'Q', the man accused of being an al-Qaida leader, "alleged to have sent one of the July 7 suicide bombers to a terrorism training camp in Pakistan" and who "is living freely in the home counties and is not facing any charges". Part of the real story behind Crevice that is receiving very little coverage.
al Qaeda = PNAC, CIA, Mossad (MI6?)
That would be "Ludicrous Diversions"
02.05.2007 10:43
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