By IRNA
London : Eight men went on trial in London Thursday accused of plotting to explode homemade liquid bombs on transatlantic passenger aircraft back in August 2006.
Prosecution barrister Peter Wright was due to begin opening the case against the defendants, facing charges linked to the alleged plot that counter terrorist police claimed to foil.
All eight have denied charges of conspiring with other.
The trial, which is expected to take around 8 months, starts after a 12-person jury was selected on Wednesday. The potential members were warned by the judge Mr Justice Calvert-Smith that the case would be long, complex and high-profile.
“This case concerns an allegation that in 2006 a number of men planned to create bombs which some of their members would take on board passenger aircraft flying from London Heathrow to various destinations in Canada and the USA,” the judge said.
“It is further alleged that the bombs were planned to be set off when the aircraft were airborne and the bombers and all on board the aircraft would be killed,” he said.
The eight defendants, all from around London and in their 20s, are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, also known as Ahmed Ali Khan, Assad Sarwar, Tanvir Hussain, Mohammed Gulzar, Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan, Waheed Zaman, and Umar Islam, also known as Brian Young.
The alleged plot caused Britain for the first time to its terror alert to the maximum ‘critical’ level for four days before being downgraded back to ‘very serious.’
It led to a ban being imposed at all British airport against passengers carrying all fluids and liquids, except prescribed medicines and baby milk, on board planes and restrictions on the size of hand luggage allowed as cabin baggage.