UK jihadist doctor: Terrorist’s doctor kept quiet about e-mail that spoke of dying for Allah
The brother of an Islamic terrorist who drove a flaming Jeep into Glasgow airport was convicted yesterday of failing to tell police about the mission.
Sabeel Ahmed received an e-mail from his brother Kafeel telling him to look after their mother and father and saying: “It’s about time that we give up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam to please Allah.”
Sabeel, an NHS doctor, did not read the e-mail until the evening after the attack but still did not tell police about it. Yesterday he admitted failing to disclose information to police and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
He will be released from custody and voluntarily deported to India almost immediately because of time in jail he has already served.
At the end of June last year Kafeel had targeted London nightclubs with two car bombs that were designed to “maximise the loss of life” but they failed to detonate.
Knowing that the police were closing in, he instead tried to drive a burning vehicle into the airport on June 30. But he could not get through the glass doors and suffered severe burns from which he later died.
Kafeel’s e-mail directed Sabeel to online documents containing his will and instructions on how to mislead investigators. Part of it read: “This is a project I was working on for some time now. Everything else was a lie and I hope you can forgive me for being such a good liar. It was necessary.”
The message added: “Inshallah by the time you get this message I should have achieved one of the two goals by the will of Allah.”
Jonathan Laidlaw, for the prosecution, told the Old Bailey how Kafeel aimed for the entrance doors of the airport but crashed into the pillars. He said: “Despite his efforts, the vehicle became trapped. Those who witnessed him described a set and determined face as he stared forward.
“His passenger lowered his window and threw a petrol bomb across the bonnet in the direction of the taxi rank and then threw a second of these devices in the opposite direction. At the same time the driver, the defendant’s brother, began to pour and splash fuel from a can on to the area outside the car window and appeared to throw a petrol bomb.
“He got out of the vehicle and was engulfed in flames that swept around the Jeep and terminal building. He appeared to try and prevent others from getting to him or the vehicle. He kicked out but eventually, he being on fire, he was extinguished, subdued, handcuffed and arrested.”
Sentencing Sabeel, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told him: “Just before he \ set off on the attack he sent you a text message telling you to access the site to which he had saved his document. It is clear that Kafeel Ahmed wrote it in anticipation of his own death in the hope that his body may be unrecognisable and unidentifiable, and asked you to keep up a pretence that he was in Iceland on some secret project connected with his work as a scientist.
“It is clear you did not receive it until afterwards. Having opened the document on the website and realising your brother had been involved in a very serious offence, you kept that to yourself rather than going to the authorities. I accept there is no sign of you being an extremist or party to extremist views.”
Bilal Abdullah, 28, and Mohammed Asha, 27, will go on trial this year for conspiracy to cause explosions.