Man admits UK-US terror bomb plot

title riped straight from the BBC because i couldnt think of anything myself :p

I could see this here so i thought id post it.

A man has pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder people in a series of bombings on British and US targets.

Dhiren Barot, of north London, planned to use a radioactive "dirty bomb" in one of a series of attacks in the UK, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

news.bbc.co.uk...

This could have been possibly the biggest terrorist plot to date yet theres practicaly no physical evidence at all that suggests the attacks would ever take place.

Among some of the attacks around the UK and US that would happen simultaneously were a dirty bomb, attacks on the International Monetary Fund, World Bank buildings, New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup buildings, Prudential buildings and Blow up limousines in underground car parks willed with gas cylinders and explosives along with a number of other attacks.

Someone try to explain to me how all that makes sense? not to mention why its only been brought up today when the guy was arrested a year ago.

The problems that i have here (and i should probably just list them) are as follows.

They only have 8 men arrested in connection with these planned attacks. 8 men surely isnt enough to make a plan like this work?

Theres no physical evidence that they were even planning to carry out these attacks. Apart from the laptop of course, theres no bombs, no gas, no radioactive material.

If all this was planed and all documented on his computer then why are there specific targets mentioned, some generals ones then just a mention of a number of other attacks? Why not list all the locations of attacks and what they involved?

Why are the planed attack so erratic? on the one hand you have attacks that were "designed to kill as many innocent people as possible" then on the other hand you have attacks that were to cause "injury, fear, terror and chaos" but not kill as many people or anyone for that matter.

maybe i'm looking to much into this, dam you ATS ill be wearing a tinfoil hat soon. Anyway anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think you have to look at the state of the case to undersatand why the information is relatively sketchy.

This bloke has pleaded guilty so he has appeared in court and will be sentenced soon - it is reasonable to assume that the case against him was pretty damned strong for him to plead that way and it's always possible he will give evidence againt others.

The key point is that seven others have not pleaded guilty and will be tried next year. There is no need to give detailed evidence for a guilty plea except as necessary to give the judge full enough information for sentencing but most importantly it will not be possible to disclose full evidence as this would prejudice the trial of the other seven defendents.

Expect to hear lots of detail in the press when the trial of those pleading not guilty comes to court.

It's taken a year for the cases to be fully constructed and the preliminary hearings to be held - not that unusual in a big complex case. All the defendants would have beed charged within the legal time frame allowed to hold suspects without charge and then remanded in custody at a court hearing.

I should add that he has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges - there's no need to have put the hardware in place for a conspiracy to be in effect and we should be thankful it was not able to go any further.

[edit on 12-10-2006 by timeless test]

That brings up a point though if the only evidence was documents about a plan for a terrorist attack couldn't you arrest the guys who created "Death of a President" under similar charges? Free speech after all should allow us to write up as many terrorist plots as we like without being arrested for it. That said we will have to wait and see how things turn out.

That kind of depends on what the documents were, how detailed they were and whether or not they were credible as evidence of a real conspiracy. Presumably they were or he would not have pleaded guilty.

As for them being the only evidence - don't bank on it, more will be revealed when the other seven come to trial. All the prosecution have had to do is outline the basis of the case.