IN AIRLINES

8 British tried for bomb plot

02-18-2009 | AP

Panama Star Lawyer Peter Wright said the men planned to smuggle the bomb ingredients aboard jets bound from Britain to North America disguised as "soft-drinks bottles, batteries and other innocuous items" carried in hand luggage.

"They were to be detonated in-flight by suicide bombers," including several of the accused, said Wright as he opened the case against the defendants.

Eight men aged between 22 and 30 deny conspiracy to murder. But Wright said the defendants were close to carrying out their plan when they were arrested in August 2006.

The arrests led to huge travel chaos, as hundreds of flights were grounded and thousands of people had their trips disrupted. They also triggered massive changes to airport security — including restrictions on carrying liquids on planes — that persist to this day.

Wright said the plot would have caused "a civilian death toll from terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale."

He said alleged ringleaders Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, both 28, "shared a common interest that involved inflicting heavy casualties upon an unwitting civilian population, all in the name of Islam."

The defendants, he said, were "men with the cold-eyed certainty of the fanatic." The blasts were intended as "a violent and deadly statement of intent that would have a truly global impact." Wright said that the plot was organized in Britain.