Three North African men have been arrested and charged over an alleged plot to release cyanide gas in London’s Underground rail system, British police sources said Saturday.
The gang is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, Britain’s Sky News reported.
”Three men were charged with offences under the Terrorism Act 2000 this week,” said a British Home Office representative. The representative did not confirm widespread reports that the detained men had planned to release cyanide gas into the subway rail system.
Rabah Chekat-Bais (21) Rabah Kadris in his mid 30s, and Karim Kadouri (33) were charged with ”possession of articles for the preparation, instigation and commission of terrorism acts,” a police source said.
Chekat-Bais appeared before Bow Street Magistrates Court, in central London, last Monday and Kadris and Kadouri, appeared in court on Tuesday.
The three men, all unemployed, were remanded in custody to
appear before magistrates again on Monday.
The UK paper, Sunday Times, which broke the story, said that six North African men had been arrested on November 9 by Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch in connection with the plot.
Michael Rufford the assistant editor of the paper told Britain’s Sky News: ”There were six arrests originally, three people were released, only three were charged.”
”MI5, the security service, believed the gang was planning to bring ingredients for a gas bomb into Britain. Their most likely target was a crowded tube train where the chemicals would be mixed to release toxic fumes, probably cyanide,” reported the paper.
”They (MI5) raided more than half a dozen addresses in north London, some used as drop-ins by Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian immigrants, and took away items after searches,” the paper said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was told of the plot at a Downing
Street summit attended by British Home Secretary David Blunkett and security chiefs, according to the paper.
Blair ”insisted police shut down the suspected terror cell and rejected a plan to delay any arrests until MI5 had established more about the gang and its al-Qaeda links,” the paper said.
”MI5 believed the gang was acting on instructions from an
al-Qaeda commander in Europe,” Downing Street sources told the paper.
The plot is believed to have been the trigger which prompted Blair’s terror alert to the nation last week, the paper said.
Government sources insisted that the case was not behind Blair’s announcement, in a key foreign affairs speech last week, that the security services are warning on an almost daily basis of terrorist threats to a wide range of targets in Britain.
Nor, the sources added, was the case connected to Blunkett’s warning earlier this month that al-Qaeda might be ready to use ”a so-called dirty bomb, or some kind of poison gas,” possibly targeting trains and boats to strike at the heart of Britain’s cities.
That startling assessment was rapidly recalled by officials, and replaced by a lower key warning about attacks on ”key economic targets or upon our transport infrastructure”.
”If the government or the police thought it was necessary at any stage to give the public a specific warning about any venue, including the government, then we would do it without hesitation,” said a representative from the British Home Office.
Under Britain’s tough new anti-terrorism laws, introduced in the wake of the September 11 atrocities, foreigners considered a threat to national security can be detained indefinitely. – Sapa-AFP