London’s high-security Woolwich Crown Court has opened the trial about the 2006 attempted terrorist attacks on flights from London Heathrow to Canada and the US. Eight men, aged between 22 and 30, are on trial and they all deny conspiracy to murder. They plotted to detonate homemade bombs disguised as soft drinks.
So far, lead prosecutor Peter Wright read the jury extracts from several of the videos, allegedly made by six of the defendants, that apparently were intended to be played after their deaths. Two ringleaders were acting on instructions from masterminds in Pakistan to draw together a gang of suicide bombers from radicalised and vulnerable young Muslims, he said. The alleged Islamic extremists were stopped when counter-terrorist police swooped on two senior gang figures in August 2006. The two had been followed by undercover detectives for weeks as they made the final preparations for the attacks, the jury was told.
Further information of the trial was not yet made public, as a court order restricts reporting of some details of the trial, which is expected to last 10 months.
