Terror plotter gets 17 years

2005-04-13 21:43

London - An Algerian suspected of being linked to al-Qaeda was sentenced on Wednesday to 17 years in prison for planning attacks involving ricin and other poisons.

Kamel Bourgass, the presumed ringleader of an Islamic extremist group, was found guilty on Friday of conspiring to "commit a public nuisance by the use of poisons and/or explosives".

On Wednesday Bourgass, who is already serving a life sentence for murder, was ordered jailed for preparing and planning the attacks with an array of home-made poisons including ricin - a deadly toxin made from castor beans - cyanide, botulism, nicotine poison and potato poison.

"This is an important conviction that has removed a very dangerous man from our streets," said Peter Clarke, the metropolitan police anti-terrorist chief.

"The public have been spared from a real and deadly threat."

Bourgass was sentenced in 2004 to life in prison for killing a police officer during a failed attempt to flee capture in January 2003.

A further charge of conspiracy to murder was dismissed on Tuesday.

Four others on trial with Bourgass, all Algerian nationals, were acquitted of charges of conspiracy to murder and planning the attacks.

The trial results were published on Wednesday after the courts lifted a ban on media coverage in place since shortly after Bourgass's capture more than two years ago.

British authorities suspect Bourgass, a failed asylum seeker thought to be between 28 and 32 and who used at least four false identities, received terrorist training at al-Qaeda-run camps in Afghanistan.

He was believed to have been specially selected at the camps for instruction in making poisons and explosives.

"There is no doubt at all that Kamel Bourgass was a dedicated and very dangerous terrorist," Clarke said.

Police raids on his London flat and other locations uncovered recipes and ingredients for making home-made poisons, as well as £14 000 in cash and a CD-ROM in Arabic which "extolled the benefit of using bombs in furtherance of the Jihad", or according to Scotland Yard.

After the London raid on his flat in early January 2003, Bourgass fled to Manchester, where he was cornered on January 13 in an flat by a police anti-terrorist unit.

He stabbed detective Stephen Oake eight times with a kitchen knife, and injured three other policemen, in a failed attempt to flee.

He was given a life sentence - with a minimum jail time of 22 years - for the murder, and eight further years for wounding another officer.

After the conspiracy to murder charges were dismissed against Bourgass and his four co-defendants on Tuesday, public prosecutors said they would not pursue a further trial involving three Algerian nationals and a Libyan.

- AFP