Bomb plotter convicted

Islamic extremist Abdulla Ahmed Ali was today found guilty of conspiring to murder thousands in an unprecedented airline bomb plot.

The 28-year-old was the leader of an east London al Qaida-inspired terror cell, a Woolwich Crown Court jury found.

He planned to detonate home-made liquid bombs in suicide attacks on transatlantic aircraft bound for major north American cities.

Along with Ali, Assad Sarwar 29, of Walton Drive, High Wycombe, and Tanvir Hussain, 28, of Nottingham Road, Leyton, were also found guilty of involvement in the airline bomb plot today.

But Ibrahim Savant, 28, of Denver Road, Stoke Newington, Arafat Waheed Khan, 28, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow, Waheed Zaman, 25, of Queen¹s Road, Walthamstow, were found not guilty of the airliner plot.

The jury failed to reach a verdict on Umar Islam, 31, of Bushey Road, Plaistow, of the airliner plot.

But Islam was convicted of conspiracy to murder.

Donald Stewart-Whyte, 23, of Hepplewhite Close, High Wycombe, was found not guilty of both conspiracy to murder on aircraft and conspiracy to murder.

Ali, Sarwar and Hussain were convicted of conspiracy to murder in the first trial but retried, along with the five other men, for the airliner plot after the first jury failed to reach verdicts on those charges.