Four charged in Britain with financing terrorist activities

AFP ^ | 12/08/03 | PAUL AMES,

[TexKat]

LONDON (AFP) - Four men arrested in a vast anti-terrorist sweep by British police were charged with seeking to fund terrorist activities and make bombs and firearms, police said.

The four, aged between 23 and 26, were to appear in court on Tuesday to be formally charged, a police spokesman said.

"The charges against them relate to allegedly obtaining and possessing money to fund terrorism or possessing articles or material which provide instruction or training to make firearms or explosives," the spokesman said.

"The offences are alleged to have taken place on or before December 2."

He said two of those charged were residents of Dudley, a suburb of the central city of Birmingham, while the other two were living in Luton, just north of London. No names were released.

The men were arrested in pre-dawn raids across England on December 2.

British police have launched a series of anti-terrorist raids in the past two weeks that have led to the arrest of about 20 people. The country is on a heightened state of alert against extremist attacks in the run-up to Christmas.

Sajid Badat, a 24-year-old British Muslim, was arrested on November 27 at his home in Gloucester in southwest England. He was charged on Thursday with conspiring to stage a bomb attack with "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, the Briton jailed in the United States for trying to blow up a passenger plane.

Badat, who is reported to have recently finished studies at an Islamic centre in northwest England, is to be brought before the Old Bailey criminal court in London on December 11.

Another suspect, Noureddinne Mouleff, 36-year-old unemployed Algerian national, was charged December 3 with being in possession of items or articles connected to the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism.

He was also charged with conspiring to defraud banks. He is to appear before a London court on Wednesday.

Britain has been on a high security alert since the weekend before US President George W. Bush's state visit to London on November 18-21 and the November 20 bombing of the British consulate and HSBC bank in Istanbul.

The wave of arrests by anti-terrorist police has added to concern that the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden or another organisation might try to carry out an attack on British soil in the period leading to Christmas.

[theDentist]

I wonder how many were sitting members of the Labour Party?

[sushiman]

By allowing all of these Muslims into the country in the first place , the U.K. ( and other European countries as well ) is digging its own grave . The U.S. , I'm afraid , with its open borders , is following suit .

[Timocrat]

Hopefully the Brits aren't indulging in racial profiling.[;)