LONDON - The trial of eight British Muslims who allegedly planned to blow up several transatlantic airliners using bombs made from explosive liquids went on trial earlier this week at Woolwich Crown Court in South-East London. The group were accused of "conspiracy to commit murder" and "conspiracy to commit an act of violence likely to endanger the safety of an aircraft."
The alleged terrorist plot went south on Aug. 9, 2006 when two of the "key gang members" were arrested in a parking structure in East London after several months of surveillance. British police would have preferred to let the plot hatch a bit longer, especially considering that most of the men charged didn't even have passports with which to board the planes, but they made the arrests anyway at the urging of U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.
What's particularly interesting about the plot, however, reports the London Daily Mail, is a diary seized from one of the alleged ringleaders, which contained a "blueprint" of the bomb plot, but also an idea as to how the plotters would sneak past customs without being targeted as possible terrorists.
"[I]t [the diary] revealed that the fanatics hoped to hoodwink airport security officers by putting pornographic magazines and condoms in their hand luggage to indicate that they could not be Muslim zealots," the Daily Mail reported. "The diary apparently tells how security staff would be fooled by 'dirty mags' and condoms in the gang's hand luggage" - a reference to the Puritan-like sexual mores of Muslim fundamentalists.
"A scrawl in Ali's diary said simply: 'Prepare dirty mag to distract, condom'," the Daily Mail report continued.
So far, no one traveling in the U.S. has been stopped or searched as a terror suspect because of adult materials or novelties in their luggage, although several months ago, one woman's baggage was searched after security officers heard her vibrator, which had been accidentally switched on, buzzing inside her checked suitcase.
Legal
- By
