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| Britain |
| In Britain, three acquitted of some transit bombing charges |
| 2009-04-28 |
| Reporting from London -- Three men accused of helping suicide bombers who killed 52 people in a 2005 attack on London's transportation system were acquitted today of the most serious charges they faced, a second defeat for prosecutors in the case. The jury found Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil and Sadeer Saleem not guilty of carrying out a reconnaissance mission to help the four bombers who boarded three subway trains and a bus with homemade explosives July 7, 2005. Ali and Shakil were convicted of conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, a lesser charge, and were scheduled to be sentenced tWednesday. The verdicts ended a three-month retrial of the men, whose previous proceedings last year resulted in a hung jury. The three defendants have been the only people charged so far in the attacks. Under British double jeopardy laws, any further trial of the same defendants would have to be based on new evidence, said a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service, adding that it was "technically possible but very rare." Commenting in the Times of London, Andy Hayman, assistant commissioner for London's Metropolitan Police from 2005 to 2007, wrote that the trial "probably represents the last throw of the dice for the police investigation in 7/7. It is frustrating . . . knowing that people who aided and abetted the murders of 52 innocent people remain at large." The accused, Britons of Pakistani origin who come from the Beeston area of Leeds in northern England, all admitted to being friends of the four men who carried out the bombings, but they denied charges of conspiracy to cause an explosion. They were accused of scouting the capital for possible targets with two of the four bombers on a trip to London in December 2004. The jury was shown homemade videos and heard evidence from secretly recorded conversations that showed the accused were close friends of the four bombers: Mohamed Sidique Khan, Shahzad Tanweer, Hasib Hussain, and Germaine Lindsay. Ali, 25, and Shakil, 32, were arrested at Manchester airport in 2007. They were about to board a plane for Pakistan where, according to prosecutors, they planned to attend a terrorist training camp. However, the prosecution failed to provide convincing enough evidence for the jury to convict Ali, Shakil, and the 28-year-old Saleem of conspiracy to cause explosions. |
| Posted by:ed |