40 year sentence for terrorist plot

A British man found guilty of planning to kill thousands of people in both the UK and US in a series of terrorist attacks has been jailed for life.

Dhiren Barot, 34, from Kingsbury, north-west London, was told that he would have to serve a minimum of 40 years in jail.

Barot, who was described as a member or close associate of al Qaeda by the prosecution, had a number of plots, including plans to use a radioactive 'dirty' bomb and the "gas limos project", which involved filing limousines with gas cylinders and exploding them in car parks close to target buildings such as financial institutions.

The prosecution also said that Barot had plotted to blow up a Tube train under the River Thames in order to flood London's Underground network.

He had also plotted a number of attacks in the US, targeting the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington DC, as well as the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup headquarters and the Prudential building in Newark, New Jersey.

The Metropolitan Police said that Barot had carried out "extensive research and planning" for the attacks, including reconnaissance visits to America, via the internet and visiting public and specialist libraries and had also written detailed documents for the attacks, which were discovered on computer hard drives following his arrest in August 2004.

Barot, a former Hindu who had converted to Islam, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder last month.

At Woolwich Crown Court on Tuesday, Mr Justice Butterfield said: "You are a determined and dedicated terrorist. You are a highly intelligent and extremely dangerous man. You trained for years in Pakistan in order to wreak death and destruction on the western world."

Commenting on the verdict, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said: "Barot was a determined and experienced terrorist. He went to terrorist training camps in 1995, long before 9/11, or the invasions of Afghanistan or Iraq. He is not someone who has recently been attracted to the terrorist cause.

"He is a full-time terrorist. His training showed through. He used anti-surveillance, coded messages and secret meetings, but he could not evade capture.

"For well over two years we have been unable to show the British public the reality of the threat they faced from this man. Now they can see for themselves the full horror of his plans."

(KMcA)