2006 Transatlantic Aircraft Plot - Arrests

Arrests

On 9 August 2006, British police arrested 24 suspects. The arrests were made in London, Birmingham, and High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in an overnight operation. Two of the arrests were made in the Birmingham area, where firearms officers were not involved, and five were made in High Wycombe. The key suspects were British-born Muslims, some of Pakistani descent. Three of the suspects were recent converts to Islam.

Nineteen of the suspects had their finances frozen. Seventeen of the suspects were later charged with conspiracy to murder and commit acts of terrorism or failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. Eight of the suspects were released without charge. Another seven suspects were arrested in Pakistan on charges related to the alleged plot.

Police said they had been observing this plot for months, and that the "investigation reached a critical point last night (9 August 2006) when the decision was made to take urgent action in order to disrupt what we believe was being planned." An undercover British agent had infiltrated the group, according to American government sources. According to Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom & Security, "the plotters received a very short message to 'Go now'." However, it was not clear when the attacks were supposed to have been launched, and the New York Times has since reported that the plans were at an earlier stage than was initially stated.

British authorities carried out a total of 69 searches of residences, businesses, vehicles and open spaces, which have netted bomb-making equipment and chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke said on 21 August. "As well as the bomb-making equipment, we have found more than 400 computers, 200 mobile telephones and 8,000 items of removable storage media such as memory sticks, CDs and DVDs," he said. "So far, from the computers alone, we have removed some 6,000 gigabytes of data." It will take "many months" for investigators to analyse all of the data, he said. Police said they found a list of flights on a memory stick belonging to Mr. Ali following his arrest. The memory stick allegedly listed scheduled flights from three carriers – American Airlines, United Airlines and Air Canada.