LONDON (AFP) — The suspected leader of a group of Islamic extremists accused of trying to blow up flights over the Atlantic was found with details of the plot in his pocket diary, a prosecutor said Tuesday.
Questioned by police after they raided a house in London in 2006, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, said he was not carrying anything dangerous, the jury at the high-security Woolwich Crown Court in south-east London heard.
Prosecutors say Ali was carrying a detailed blueprint for a plot to blow up passenger jets in his diary and on a computer memory stick.
They allege that he and one of his seven co-accused, Assad Sarwar, 27, had been building up stocks of hydrogen peroxide -- a chemical that can be made into explosives -- and other bomb-making materials.
The eight men on trial deny charges of conspiracy to murder and to endanger aircraft.
The prosecution says they were trying to smuggle liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks onto jets heading from London's Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal.
They were intending to detonate the bombs in mid-air, killing thousands of people, prosecutors say.
Police found notes and diagrams in Ali's diary and detailed flight lists on the computer stick, which Ali told them were "holiday destinations in America", the court heard.
The investigation into the alleged plot led to the introduction of strict rules on carrying liquids on flights in 2006.
The other six men in the dock are: Tanvir Hussain, 27, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, Waheed Zaman, 23, and Umar Islam, also known as Brian Young, 29.
Seven are from London, while Sarwar lives just west of the capital.
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