Posted on 04/14/2005 8:17:53 AM PDT by SJackson
The Government has denied that the conviction of an al Qaida terrorist for plotting to spread the deadly poison ricin was an “embarrassment”.
Kamel Bourgass, 31, was jailed yesterday for 17 years after his plan to smear ricin on the door handles of cars and buildings in the Holloway Road area of north London was uncovered.
The Algerian was already serving a life sentence for murdering Special Branch detective Stephen Oake who he stabbed to death when he was cornered in a flat in Manchester.
He also knifed three other officers following a bungled raid by Greater Manchester Police Special Branch, which had allowed the terrorist to remain unhandcuffed for an hour-and-a-half.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis attacked the Government for allowing the plot by the failed asylum seeker and the murder of Detective Constable Oake to happen.
“This officer was killed by someone who should have been deported when his asylum application failed,” Mr Davis said.
“Unfortunately this failure was a direct consequence of the Government’s chaotic asylum policy and its porous borders.”
But Home Secretary Charles Clarke defended how the case was handled.
He said: “I think that firstly this is an illustration of the fact that terrorist organisations exist and are seeking to damage our lives.
“Secondly it has to urge us on to find better ways of dealing with the threat that they have.”
Police and MI5 believe Bourgass – who is also known as Nadir Habra – had been handpicked for training in poison making in one of Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and that he was part of a network of hundreds of mainly Algerian terrorists which stretched across Europe and North America.
The network has been linked to numerous other plots including in the United States, France and Spain.
Bourgass faced two lengthy trials amid high security at the Old Bailey but they were only reportable yesterday.
In the first, last year, he was convicted of murdering Detective Constable Oake in Manchester and jailed for life.
The judge, Mr Justice Penry-Davey said he would serve a minimum of 22 years. He also received sentences of 15 years for attempting to murder two other Special Branch officers and eight years for wounding another officer with intent.
Mr Justice Penry-Davey said it was only the bravery of Detective Constable Oake and his colleagues that stopped Bourgass escaping.
The family of Stephen Oake said yesterday they had forgiven his killer and would pray for him, while a day after the court revelations the first police anti-terrorist squad outside London was launched today in Greater Manchester.
Bourgass was arrested following a raid in Crumpsall Lane, Manchester, on January 14, 2003, nine days after police raided a flat in Wood Green, north London where he had been making the poisons.
Bourgass was not at the Wood Green flat when it was raided, having moved out to stay in the Finsbury Park mosque in north London, where he also spend time selling clothes he had shoplifted.
He also used the mosque as a postal address and had used a photocopier there to make copies of poison recipes.
In the Wood Green raid, police found accurate recipes and ingredients for poisons including ricin, cyanide and botulinum – one of the most toxic substances known to man – and the blueprint for a bomb.
A pestle and mortar hidden under a chest of drawers contained a substance which initially tested positive as ricin – although later tests by experts at the chemical warfare laboratories at Porton Down were negative.
In fact there was no ricin but a liaison officer at Porton Down admitted not telling police that for some time because the scientists could not be sure.
Bourgass also collected cherry stones and apple seeds – the raw ingredients for cyanide – and had more than 20 castor beans which can be used to make ricin.
The Porton Down scientists followed the instructions in detailed recipes Bourgass had written out by hand and produced enough ricin and cyanide to kill hundreds of people.
At the end of the second trial he was jailed for 17 years for conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
The jury failed to reach a verdict on a more serious charge of conspiracy to murder and were discharged.
But they had not been told that Bourgass was already serving life for murdering a policeman.
The judge told Bourgass: “You in my judgement, on the evidence, were the prime mover in a terrorist operation involving the use of poisons and explosives and intended to destabilise the community in this country by causing disruption, fear and injury.
“In the light of events worldwide over recent years there is a good reason for heightened concern about terrorism.
“Had the operation come to fruition the resulting fear and disruption with the potential for injury and widespread panic would have been substantial.”
Four other Algerians – Mouloud Sihali, 29, David Aissa Khalef, 33, Sidali Feddag, 20, and Mustapha Taleb, 35 – were also in the dock in Bourgass’s second trial facing the same two charges.
They were alleged to have played support roles in the plot – the evidence against them consisted mainly of fingerprints linking them to items found in Wood Green.
All four men were cleared by the jury on both counts.
Following the not guilty verdicts, prosecutors dropped plans for a third trial involving four other alleged conspirators – three Algerians and a Libyan.
Gareth Peirce, solicitor for three of the cleared men, said the case had been wrongly used to boost the argument for war in Iraq.
On the eve of the US and British invasion there, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to tell the United Nations that the London ricin plot was linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leading militant in Iraq.
Ms Peirce said: “There was a great deal that this country was led to believe that in part caused it to go to war on Iraq, erected on the basis of an alleged major conspiracy involving ricin.
“It is appropriate that that now is revisited.”
Bourgass has been given leave to appeal his murder conviction on the basis that evidence about the chemical find at Wood Green had been allowed to go before the jury in the murder trial, his lawyer said.
Cyanide from apple seeds - an organic poisoner, no less. Fortunately, the perp never learned to let his fingers do the walking. Cyanide isn't hard to find if you looks up chemicals in the yellow pages.
On the other hand, after all those apples, he should be able to dispense with that wonderful British socialized medical service for lots of days.
Depending on the number of apples he bought, of course.
I do think that the Conservatives would be a lot harsher on this type of people.
Goodness gracious, it looks as if the US isn't the only country with porous borders. Who knew.
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