Free Republic

An FBI-led task force is trying find out how the deadly poison ricin wound up in a roll of coins used by a student in a University of Texas dormitory, officials said on Saturday. The chunky white powder was found on Thursday night when the student, doing her laundry in coin-operated washing machines, spilled the coins out of a paper tube onto her dorm room desk, said Theresa Spalding, medical director of health services at the university in Austin, Texas. The roll of coins was one of two given to the woman by her mother, Spalding said. Preliminary tests on...

After Kamel Bourgass was convicted last week of plotting to make poisons and sentenced to 17 years in prison, ministers sprang to the microphones to claim that the jury's verdict in the ricin trial proved that they had told the truth about the terrorist threat to Britain. But this was far wide of the mark. On the contrary, it was a disaster for those who believe that such a threat exists. The acquittal of eight of the nine defendants allowed the opponents of the Government's behaviour in Iraq to claim that Bourgass was merely a lone and ineffectual nutcase, that...

A poison attack planned by al-Qa'eda-trained operatives was aimed at the busy Heathrow Express rail link and would have been "our September 11", the Metropolitan Police has revealed. A plot to bring death and terror to the country was disclosed last week after Kamel Bourgass, 32, an Islamic extremist from Algeria, was convicted at the Old Bailey and jailed for 17 years. Senior Whitehall officials have told The Telegraph that Bourgass and some of his associates intended to target the busy rail link between central London and Heathrow Airport. The plan was to place ricin, a fast-acting and potentially lethal...

14 April 2005 Al-Qaeda: a conspiracy of dunces? The real story of the 'ricin plot' is that Britain's would-be terrorists are a bunch of losers. by Bill Durodié Kamel Bourgass, a 31-year old Algerian, has been found guilty of 'conspiracy to commit a public nuisance by using poisons and explosives'. We now also know that in June 2004 he had already been found guilty of the murder of detective constable Stephen Oake during a bungled police raid on a house in Manchester. The media clamour surrounding this case, however, missed the real story to emerge from the trial. As well...

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...

A suspected al-Qaeda operative who stabbed to death a policeman has been convicted of plotting to spread ricin and other poisons on the UK's streets. Kamel Bourgass, 31, is serving a life sentence after being convicted of murdering Detective Constable Stephen Oake during a 2003 raid in Manchester. Reporting restrictions covering that conviction were lifted on Wednesday. Four other men were cleared last week of taking part in a conspiracy. A second trial has been abandoned. Another man, Mohammed Meguerba, who jumped bail and fled Britain, is awaiting trial in Algeria. Police found a series of recipes, ingredients and equipment...

Cop killer Kamel Bourgass was yesterday unmasked as Osama Bin Laden’s master poisoner — with a mission to murder as many Britons as possible. Fanatical Bourgass, who stabbed detective constable Stephen Oake to death as police closed in on an al-Qaeda cell, spearheaded a terrifying plot to terrorise London. The gang planned to smear lethal ricin poison on door handles of cars and shops in the bustling Holloway Road, North London. They even intended to open toothbrush packs in shops, daub them with ricin and re-seal them. And the alarming campaign also involved a cyanide attack on the Tube, targeting...