London Stock Exchange terror gang jailed for almost 100 years

Published on Friday 10 February 2012 00:00

NINE British members of an al-Qaeda-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange, stage a “Mumbai-style” attack on Parliament and build a terrorist training camp have been jailed for a total of 94 years and eight months.

Three of the extremists, who planned to raise funds for the camp in Pakistan and recruit Britons to attend it, received indeterminate sentences for public protection at Woolwich Crown Court in London.

Mohammed Shahjahan, 27, was jailed for eight years and ten months, while fellow Stoke-on-Trent-based radicals Usman Khan, 20, and Nazam Hussain, 26, were ordered to serve at least eight years behind bars.

The court heard the trio planned to establish a terror camp in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir on land owned by Khan’s family and encourage British Muslims to undergo training there.

Khan and Hussain planned to train there themselves before “obtaining first-hand terrorist experience in Kashmir”, the hearing was told.

Passing sentence, Judge Mr Justice Wilkie said this was a “serious, long-term venture in terrorism” that could also have resulted in atrocities in Britain, including the targeting of troops returning from fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan.

The extremists also talked about setting off pipe bombs in the toilets of pubs in their home town of Stoke, the court heard.

The judge said they were “more serious jihadists” than their fellow defendants and observed that father-of-two Shahjahan was regarded as the “emir”, or leader, of the group.

The four fundamentalists who plotted to plant a pipe bomb in the toilets of the stock exchange all received extended sentences, meaning they will have to spend an extra five years on licence after they are freed. Abdul Miah, 25, from Cardiff, was jailed for 16 years and ten months. The judge said he was the leader of a branch of the terrorist network and set the agenda “by virtue of his maturity, criminal nous, experience and personality”.

His brother, Gurukanth Desai, 30, from Cardiff, and Shah Rahman, 28, from east London, were jailed for 12 years, and Mohammed Chowdhury, 22, from east London – the “lynchpin” of the group – was sentenced to 13 years and eight months.

A handwritten target list found at Chowdhury’s home listed the names and addresses of London mayor Boris Johnson, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, two rabbis, the US Embassy in London and the Stock Exchange.

Omar Latif, 28, from Cardiff, was jailed for ten years and four months, with an extended licence of five years, for attending meetings with the intention of assisting others in terrorism.

Mohibur Rahman, 27, from Stoke, received a five-year sentence for possessing two copies of online al-Qaeda magazine Inspire for terrorist purposes.