Documents taken from Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound will be used in the trial of a British-based student accused of plotting attacks in the UK, it has been revealed. Abid Naseer, 28, who is Pakistani-born, is alleged to have plotted, along with a group of al-Qaeda operatives, to plant bombs in Manchester, New York and Norway.The classified documents, which were recovered after Navy Seals killed the terror group leader in a 2013 raid on his Abbottabad hideout, will be used by federal prosecutors in the US in Naseer's February trial in an attempt to prove his guilt. Zainab Ahmad, for the prosecution, said he could not reveal what was detailed in the documents as they were top secret, but that they would be declassified in time for the trial.
The revelation was made at a Brooklyn court hearing where Naseer appeared in relation to charges of “providing and conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda” as well as for “conspiracy to use a destructive device in relation to the UK branch of the plot”.
It is the first time that material from the trove of files seized in the raid will have been used in a US courtroom.
Naseer, who originally came to the UK on a student visa, was among 11 men arrested in 2009 in Manchester and Liverpool, accused of making explosives to be used in an attack unspecified targets in Manchester.
No explosives were found in a subsequent raid of his home, but US prosecutors say that Naseer shared an email account with three men in America who have been convicted of plotting to bomb the New York subway. They say that both he and the New York plotters had used the address to communicate in coded language with an al-Qaeda handler in Pakistan named “Ahmad”, who advised on the use of flour and oil to manufacture explosives.
Naseer was extradited to the US in 2013 after losing a case against the Home Office.
Naseer, who is representing himself in court, denies the charges.