UK terror trial finds no terror.

The world was told that ricin had been found in a London flat. The story was untrue.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn/nsn-050411.htm


George Smith, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, GlobalSecurity.Org has written that the UK terror trial found no terror.

The jury found "the UK poison cell," known as Kamel Bourgas and others (Sidali Faddag, Samir Asli, Mouloud Bouhrama, Mustapha Taleb, Mouloud Sihali, Aissa Kalef), not guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting ricin attacks.

Kamel Bourgas had been previously convicted of murder of a British policeman in an unpublicized trial.

Two days after the January 5th search of the Wood Green "poison cell" flat, and well before the outbreak of war with Iraq, the chief scientist advising British anti-terrorism authorities, Martin Pearce found that there was no trace of ricin at the flat.

However, an employee at Porton Down claimed, wrongly, that ricin had indeed been detected.

At the time of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, experts within the UK government surely knew that no ricin had been recovered.

The Raid:

British anti-terrorist branch men swooped down on suspected terrorists in the north and east of London in September of 2002 and January of 2003.

Several suspected terrorists were arrested. One at Wood Green, others connected to a raid at the Finsbury Park mosque and one, Kamel Bourgas, a week later, in Manchester. Bourgas stabbed and killed a police officer in the Manchester raid. At the apartment in Wood Green - a "residue of ricin" was said to have been found. "A presumed al-Qaeda terror lab had been shut down."

The alleged existence of ricin and "the UK poison cell" in January 2003 played a part of Colin Powell's presentation as an excuse for war against Iraq.

Hundreds of news articles appeared on the Wood Green terrorists. Perhaps some of these men had been connected with terrorists training in the Pankisi gorge. Maybe the ricin was going to be used in a subway attack.

GlobalSecurity learnt that none of this was true. There was no ricin. And no other poisons were detected. No capability was exhibited to be in the hands of the defendants.

The findings at the flat at Wood Green:

GlobalSecurity.Org lists the findings and materials found at the Wood Green flat.
These included:

A coffee grinder. It did contain a bit of brown powder. The defendants apparently drank coffee.

In fact, no traces of biological or chemical weapons were detected in the apartment.

Martin Pearce, the Porton Down scientist who accompanied the anti-terrorism team on the Wood Green raid noted items of potential interest to include toiletries...

Twenty-two intact castor seeds were recovered. Spice was also seized, a jar of kalonji black onion seed.

The "UK poison cell" defendants were on trial for six months. There were 90 arrests. Nine people were charged and none have been convicted. Kamel Bourgas was justifiably convicted of a murder of a police officer during the raid in which he was taken into custody.

There was no UK poison cell linked to al Qaida or Muhamad al Zarqawi. There was no ricin with which to poison London. There was no one who even knew how to purify ricin.

Duncan Campbell, expert witness and scientist for the defense in the trial, helped put together the globalsecurity report.