Fiancee of July 21 suicide attack plotter jailed for helping him to escape in a burka
The fiancée of one of the leaders of the failed July 21 suicide attacks has been sentenced to three years in jail for helping him escape by dressing in a burka as a Muslim woman.
Fardosa Abdullahi, who was 17 at the time, gave Yassin Omar her mobile phone handset, provided a scarf and handbag for his disguise and accompanied him to Golders Green coach station where he fled to Birmingham in his feminine disguise.
Omar's family persuaded her to contact police but she claimed she did not know where he was and it was not until six days after the bombings that police caught up with the bomber when they raided a house in Birmingham where he was found standing in a bath with a rucksack on his back.
But Abdullahi, who had just left school in 2005, claimed she was pressurised by Omar and her family into the engagement, four days before the attacks, and into helping him escape.
Sentencing her to three years in jail, Judge Paul Worsley QC, said: "Your responsibility to this country should have been greater than your responsibility to your fiancée or husband.
"The message must go out that this court will not go soft on those who assist terrorists even those who are young, vulnerable and under pressure."
The court heard that Abdullahi, who is 24 weeks pregnant, suffered from severe post traumatic stress disorder after a serious assault when she was six in Somalia and had suffered from "on-going difficulties within her family and a further traumatic event at the age of 12" which led to treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in North London.
Medical reports from five different doctors concluded that she heard the "psuedo hallucinatory" voice of her attacker and that that voice had changed to Yassin Omar's voice after her engagement.
Judge Worsley said there was no evidence that Abdullahi was a suicide risk and added: "I can reduce the prison sentence due to circumstances but prison it must be to reinforce the fact that anyone who assists those who are set to kill and maim on a scale not to be contemplated must receive punishment."
Jonathan Cooper QC, defending, said Abdullahi was "vulnerable, manipulable, and exploitable" adding: "She may have been singled out because of her likely compliance, targeted and groomed for that purpose."
The court heard that Abdullahi's brother met Yassin Omar at Finchley Road mosque in North London and considered him a "holy man" because he had helped a family member who was ill.
Omar, who was "physically strong and domineering," told her family that he believed it was a "duty to beat a disobeying wife" but they pushed through the engagement even though Abdullahi was not present at the Muslim ceremony and she was sent to live with him at his council flat in Southgate, North London, which had been used as the bomb factory.
The court heard she had self-harmed, suffered from flash-backs, and had been sectioned under the mental health act for her own protection, later attending the Royal Free Hospital School.
Mr Cooper said: "Within three weeks she had left the hospital school, split from her boy friend of three years and been propelled the same day into an engagement with Yassin Omar."
When he turned up at the family home after the bombings Abdullahi "came under intense pressure to assist both from him and her own extended family" Mr Cooper said.
She rang police with her false story on July 24 but recordings of the 999 conversation show there were male voices interrupting in Somali and Swahili.
In three separate statements while Omar was on the run, Abdullahi told police he had arrived at the family home in Finchley after the bombings and asked her mother and brother to go to his flat in Southgate to get him some clothing.
She said she did not realise what he had done, he left at 10pm and she never saw him again.
But mobile phone evidence and CCTV footage showed she had actually been with him on the day before the attacks and had accompanied him to Golders Green coach station in North London the day afterwards.
Abdullahi was arrested in September 2006 but refused to answer any questions and only changed her plea to guilty a week before her trial was due to start in June.
She is the 16th and last person to be jailed in connection with the plot bringing the total sentences to 302 and nine months.