UK TERROR TRIAL FINDS NO TERROR: NOT GUILTY IN RICIN TRIAL

[No Exit]

April 11, 2005


SPECIAL National Security Notes

UK TERROR TRIAL FINDS NO TERROR: Not guilty of conspiracy to poison London with ricin

by George Smith, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, GlobalSecurity.Org

One of the last claims in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003 blew away like dust in the wind late last week in the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court.

The trial of the infamous "UK poison cell," a group portrayed by Secretary of State Powell as al Qaida-associated operatives plotting to launch ricin attacks in the United Kingdom and in league with Muhamad al Zarqawi in Iraq, found nothing of the sort. The jury did find "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 and, generally speaking, not guilty of conspiracy to do anything. Kamel Bourgas had been previously convicted of murder of a British policeman in an unpublicized trial.

Months earlier and behind the scenes, the British government had seen its claims, that the group had the capability to produce ricin and that materials on a ricin recipe found in their belongings could be linked to al Qaida, rupture. And equally startling, it was confirmed that a preliminary positive finding of the poison in a residue tested in a raid on their apartment in Wood Green in January of 2003 was false but that through bureaucratic bungling, just the opposite news was presented to British authorities. 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 -- leader of the Biological Weapon Identification Group at Porton Down, had finished lab tests which indicated the ricin finding was a false positive. "Subsequent confirmatory tests on the material from the pestle and mortar did not detect the presence of ricin. It is my opinion therefore that toxins are not detectable in the pestle and mortar," wrote Pearce in one document. But in an astonishing example of sheer incompetence, another employee at Porton Down charged with passing on to British authorities the information that the preliminary finding of ricin was in error, turned around and did the opposite, informing that ricin had indeed been detected.

At the time of Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, expert sources in this matter within the UK government surely knew that no ricin had been recovered from the Wood Green group of alleged terrorists, men included by the Secretary of State as part of the US government's rationale for going to war with Iraq. Whether Powell, the Bush administration or U.S. intelligence also knew is unknown. Whatever the case, it was another example of the United States' horrendous intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.

(snip)



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

[No Exit]

1. A little more

"Looking back, tension was high and TIME International wrote in a story entitled "Poisonous Plot:" "Watching the police officers come and go, some of them in protective white suits and masks, and seeing the long hours they spent in the top-floor apartment above a local pharmacy, neighbors in North London's multiracial Wood Green section knew that something big was up." ....The alleged existence of ricin and "the UK poison cell" in January 2003 would subsequently play a part of Colin Powell's presentation as rationale for war against Iraq. In his speech to the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003, Powell purported to show how a web of terrorists including the UK cell, was interconnected with Muhamad al Zarqawi, who was said to be directing terrorist plots from the safe refuge of Iraq."

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

[acmavm]

2. Some heavy punishment needs to be meted out to the 'incompetant'

that put out the false info.

Incompetant my ass, it was intentional in my opinion. But not being there and not connected to anything or anyone familiar with the situation, I'm just guessing. Because I'm guessing it would be damn hard to confuse NOT ricin or NOT any trace of ricin with 'yes it is ricin'.

[leveymg]

3. This whole thing stinks of another Iraq War dirty-tricks operation

But, not being familiar with the details, I'll defer on that conclusion.

Was there ever ANY decent evidence to link the defendants to a terrorist plot - or, was this prosecution a total fabrication and set up, like the Niger Yellow Cake forgery?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

4. Out of curiosiry, why are you posting this now?

(you may also be interested in this:

"Three jurors in the so-called 'ricin trial', whose acquittal of four Algerian terror suspects in April caused deep embarrassment to the government, police and security service, will condemn the government's new terrorism legislation in their first television interviews tonight.

It is unusual for jurors to speak to the media after a trial, but they have told The Observer they are furious that a number of the defendants have since been re-arrested and imprisoned without trial."

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1588232,00.html

[Briar]

5. Since government

and terrorist act supporters persist in referring to the ricin trial as if there were really were ricin present and the accused men were really terrorists (their imprisonment without trial proves nothing other other than that the police and government don't like looking like fools), being reminded of the truth is, I think, a good thing.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

6. Oh I agree - it's a very good point worthy of hammering home

I was just a little confused at the urgency implied by the all-caps title as I haven't heard the ricin case mentioned that recently.

There are some parallels with the Babar Ahmed case though, from the little I've read on it.