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| Britain | |
| Bobbies smash white supremacist terror plot | |
| 2009-06-08 | |
Two men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and were yesterday being quizzed by officers over their involvement in a worldwide plot. The two men held by officers -- former lorry driver Ian Davidson, 41 and his 18 year old son Nicky -- are being held at a secure location in West Yorkshire.It is feared they planned to use it as part of a biological weapon against ethnic minorities in the UK. Officers discovered traces of ricin in a kitchen cupboard of a terraced home in the former mining village of Burnopfield and believe it may have been stored there for up to two years. Since the former pub DJ's arrest forensic officers have been examining Davidson's property. Nicky was held on suspicion of inciting racial hatred following a swoop at his home in Grampian Court, Annfield Plain. However, he has since been re-arrested and is also now detained under the Terrorism Act in West Yorkshire. Durham's assistant chief constable Mike Barton said: 'This shows that the terrorist threat in the UK is real and present.' Durham Police Assistant Chief Constable Mike Barton said the discovery of ricin was 'unexpected' He said he expected further arrests to be made as inquiries spread across Britain - and abroad. 'The tentacles of this are worldwide,' he said. 'We believe the people involved to be white supremacist extremists and one of our lines of inquiry was that they were going to target people from ethnic minorities. White supremacists seem to hate an awful lot of people.' He added: 'This will spawn an awful lot of intelligence which will then kick start other criminal counter terrorism inquiries elsewhere.' The two properties raided were searched as part of long running counter terrorism operations involving MI5 and other agencies. They had been monitoring access to internet websites containing information which is 'unhelpful to public safety'. Mr Barton said the discovery of ricin came as a complete surprise. 'We did plan for such an eventuality as this, although we didn't expect it,' he admitted. The fatal agent, for which there is no antidote, is 6,000 times more poisonous than cyanide and an amount the size of a grain of salt is enough to kill an adult. Ricin can cause major organ failure and fatal collapse of the immune system if eaten or breathed in, although it is said to be difficult to manufacture it to 'weapons grade'. The presence of the toxic - which is extracted from castor oil beans - was confirmed by a government laboratory in Edinburgh. The jam jar will now be transferred under police escort to the Ministry of Defence establishment at Porton Down, where scientists will establish its strength. The home of the two men was still cealed off last night. Forensic officers wearing protective clothing are expected to be there for at least another week. In 2005, Algerian Kamel Bourgass was jailed for 17 years at the Old Bailey for plotting a ricin attack in the UK, although none of the poison was found. The last recorded death from the toxic was in London in 1978, when dissident Georgi Markov was shot in the leg with a poisoned pellet by Bulgarian agents. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #9 remeber the muslims sided with the nazis in WW2 |
| Posted by: funky skunk 2009-06-08 18:34 |
| #8 There are several "dumb" substances that are made by twits for two reasons: they are easy to make and they've heard about them on the news or Internet. Ricin is one. However, that being said, *detecting* ricin is another matter entirely. There are probably a host of false positives that could be obtained from any number of sources. "Current methods for detecting ricin usually involve combining a sample (such as a white powder found in an envelope) with proteins that bind to the ricin toxin, and then running the mixture through a mass spectrometer that sorts chemicals according to their mass and electrical charge. This process takes hours, if not days, and must be conducted in a lab, he adds." |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-06-08 18:10 |
| #7 The home of the two men was still cealed off last night. Got Editor? |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2009-06-08 16:57 |
| #6 "Not all terrorism is islamicist" but that's the way to bet.... ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-06-08 16:11 |
| #5 There's no such thing as an invasive species; it's just an undocumented perrenial. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2009-06-08 15:59 |
| #4 I'll guess that there is a lot of evidence they aren't talking about. Given it's the Brits we may never see the evidence. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2009-06-08 15:49 |
| #3 just FYI - castor bean grows wild here in San Diego as an invasive non-native plant. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-06-08 14:46 |
| #2 More details please. Yeah. I'm thinking two-year-old traces of ricin in a jam jar is pretty thin evidence of a global terror plot. Maybe at one time they had some castor beans in the jar and then forgot about it. Are we sure these guys didn't just say something that offended somebody? |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2009-06-08 14:09 |
| #1 Does this white supremist world wide terror organization have a name? Is there an estimate of the number of members, the number of countries they infest? Who are the leaders of this orginization. More details please. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-06-08 13:45 |