U.K. Defendant Testifies Infamous Plot To Blow Up Transatlantic Flights Was Publicity Stunt For Acting Career, Not Terror
All 8 Assholes
LONDON (AP) - A man accused of planning to bomb North America-bound airliners said Monday that he was planning a publicity stunt, not mass murder.
Abdulla Ahmed Ali, one of eight British Muslims charged with plotting to detonate liquid explosives aboard passenger jets, denied ever thinking about blowing up an airplane. He told Woolwich Crown Court he wanted to give Londoners a jolt—and attract attention for a movie he was making and starring in—by placing a small bomb at London’s Houses of Parliament.
“We did not want to kill or injure anyone,” Ali, 27, told the southeast London court. Ali said he wanted “something small enough to cause a large bang, maybe some smoke. Something that would be considered serious and credible, something to generate that mass media attention.”
Prosecutors accuse Ali of being one of three ringleaders of a plot to kill hundreds of airline passengers by detonating bombs concealed in soft drink bottles as the flights crossed the Atlantic Ocean, or over North American cities. They say Ali drew up a blueprint for building the crude bombs, suggesting the explosive mixture should be injected into bottles using a syringe to keep them factory sealed.
After the suspects were arrested in 2006, airlines quickly imposed tough new limits on the amount of liquids and gels airline passengers could take in their carry-on luggage.
Ali, along with Umar Islam, 30; Assad Sarwar, 28; Tanvir Hussain, 27; Mohammed Gulzar, 26; Ibrahim Savant, 27; Arafat Waheed Khan, 27; and Waheed Zaman, 24, are accused of conspiracy to murder and endangering the safety of an aircraft. All eight deny the charges. Both offenses carry maximum sentences of life in prison.
Jurors were also played footage of what prosecutors say was a suicide video intended to be seen after Ali’s death.
In it, Ali says he wanted to “punish and humiliate” unbelievers and “teach them a lesson they will never forget.”
Ali dismissed the video as propaganda, saying he wanted to combine it with footage from the Internet to make an anti-government documentary, which would then be distributed on YouTube. The bomb blast, he said, would help publicize the movie.
“We thought: If we make a documentary, how are we going to get everyone to see it and know about it? That is when we thought we would do a publicity stunt,” he said. But he also said he wanted to make the bomb serious enough to cause “general concern.”
“If we are going to make threats, there is no point doing it with a firecracker,” he said. “You have got to do it with credibility.”
Ali said he hoped the documentary would help sway the British public’s attitude toward the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which he called “totally illegal and criminal.”
Prosecutors say Ali had a computer memory stick which stored vast amounts of detail on daily air services from London to North America, adding that he and his coconspirators did not seem interested in return flights.
But Ali said an airplane was never even considered.
“I never had any intention of murdering anyone or injuring anyone,” he said. “At no stage did I ever even think of going on an airplane or causing an explosion there.”
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Someone is going to believe this shit too.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 pmI would throw these 8 assholes into a really deep hole and leave them there.
like the old saying goes, give them a fair trial and then hang their asses
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:56 pmThey’d all look a lot better dead.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:23 pmHey Abdulla, just so happens we’re making a movie too. It’s a short film about the hanging of 8 goat-humpers.
June 2nd, 2008 at 9:31 pmHe might have a chance with that line of crap here in America where you’re “innocent until proven guilty”…
unfortunately for him, it’s the other way around in Europe and England, your “guilty until proven innocent”
Good luck Haji, because you’re gonna need it you fuckin’ scumbag.
June 2nd, 2008 at 10:51 pmA movie, well that makes it perfectly OK, carry on. send me a ticket.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:09 pmHahaha does London have their own version of the ACLU?
Those’ll be the assholes they get to defend these clowns.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 pmThe Madrid and UK bombings were just actors doing research for their roles.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 amWhat a bunch of sad sack looking fools. A publicy stunt for an acting career? what a bunch of crappola that is. With their looks they could only get parts as a dancing buttholes.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:10 am
Cheers 
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 am
Cheers 
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:20 am