Failed bombing suspect admits he is a en#39;terroristen#39;
LONDON (AFP) – An Iraqi doctor accused of plotting failed car bombings last year in London and Glasgow admitted Monday to being a terrorist -- but accused the government of terrorism too.
Bilal Abdulla, a doctor in the National Health Service, insisted, however, that he was not trying to kill or injure anyone.
The 29-year-old is accused with Jordanian neurologist Mohammed Asha, 28, of conspiracy to murder and cause explosions in a failed double car bombing in London on June 29, 2007.
They are also accused over a bid the next day to crash a car filled with gas bottles into the main terminal at Glasgow airport.
Both Abdulla and Asha deny the charges against them in the trial at Woolwich Crown Court, southeast London.
Asked by his lawyer whether he told an officer that he was a terrorist after being arrested and taken to a Glasgow police station, Abdulla said: "I said something along those lines, but it was more like a question.
"Everyone was saying you are a terrorist, you are arrested under the Terrorism Act and so forth... I am told I am a terrorist, but is your government not a terrorist, is your army not a terrorist?
"By the definition of the act, according to English law, yes. This my aim, to change opinion using violence, using fire devices."
According to Abdulla, in the aftermath of the attempted car bombings in London, he had originally planned to flee to Turkey, possibly via Paris, and then move on to Jordan or to Iraq where he could "disappear."
But he said that as he and driver Kafeel Ahmed, 28, drove to Glasgow Airport so that Abdulla could catch a flight abroad, Ahmed suddenly swerved their Jeep into the airport's terminal building.
Ahmed handed Abdulla a lit petrol bomb, which led to other petrol bombs in the car being accidentally ignited, he added.
Abdulla admitted to throwing a petrol bomb and fighting with bystanders after escaping from the burning vehicle.
He said, though, that he and Ahmed had agreed "from day one... we will not kill or injure any innocent person.
"This incident, if it was to kill people or cause an explosion, we would not have done it that way," he added. "It looks very clumsy, say we entered the terminal, the car is not already set on fire."
Abdulla told the court that Ahmed had planned to go to Liverpool after Glasgow airport to be with his brother Sabeel, who worked in the city as a doctor.
He added that Ahmed had acquired the petrol bombs to protect himself from police were he to be caught along the way.
Ahmed died a month after the Glasgow attack from critical burns.
Sabeel Ahmed was found guilty by a court in April of withholding information from police about the failed attacks, and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.
He was deported to his home country India in May after being released from custody due to the amount of time he had already served in jail.
The only other man charged in connection with the plot -- Indian doctor Mohammed Haneef, who was detained in Australia -- was exonerated by a court of charges that he had abetted a group involved in the failed bombings, after the case against him collapsed for lack of evidence.