Airport bomb accused 'planned murder on a terrible scale'

Published on Monday 1 December 2008 23:20

TWO Islamic terrorists planned "murder on a terrible scale" with a series of car bombings across Britain, a jury heard yesterday.

The NHS doctors wanted to "kill and nothing else" in revenge for the invasion of Iraq, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Jonathan Laidlaw, QC, said the men dreamed of grabbing headlines around the world with al-Qaeda-inspired improvised car bombs.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Mohammed Asha, 28, are accused over attacks on London's West End and Glasgow Airport last summer.

Summing up the prosecution case at the end of an eight-week trial, Mr Laidlaw said that only "fortune and fate" prevented carnage. He said: "This was to be murder and nothing else. It was to be murder on a terrible scale for the British public, both in London and Glasgow.

"It was to be punishment, more generally, for all of us in this country because of events in Iraq.

"It was not, of course, a plan just to commit damage to property, to set cars alight; that is not the preferred by Islamic terrorists and organisations such as al-Qaeda.

"These vehicle-born improvised explosive devices were intended to kill and nothing else."

Abdulla, an Iraqi doctor at Glasgow's Royal Alexandra Hospital, said he planned a bloodless protest to highlight the suffering of his countrymen.

Asha, a Jordanian neurologist at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, said he knew nothing of his friend's plans and was arrested as "collateral damage".

A third man, Indian PhD student Ahmed, died from burns one month after the attack on Glasgow Airport.