LONDON, Feb 16
The wife of the ringleader of a suspected al Qaeda plot to blow up transatlantic airliners using liquid bombs knew of the plan but failed to tell police, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Cossor Ali's husband Abdulla Ahmed Ali and two others were jailed last September for the attempt in August 2006, known as the "liquid bomb plot" which was described as being on the scale of the Sept. 11 2001 attacks.
The bombers intended to destroy at least seven aircraft, carrying more than 200 passengers each, in mid-flight between London's Heathrow airport and the United States and Canada, using explosives hidden in soft drink bottles.
Cossor Ali, 28, stands accused of sympathising with her husband's radical beliefs and keeping his suicide plan secret, the Press Association reported.
Prosecutor Richard Whittam read to the jury at the Inner London Crown Court an entry that she made in a notebook in 2005 when she was waiting for her husband to return from Pakistan.
"I am growing more and more attached to the cause for which you are striving for (sic), and the reason for which we are apart. I hope and pray Allah grants your wish and gives you the highest level of Shahada (martyrdom)," it said.
Ali denies having information which was of material assistance in preventing her husband committing an act of terrorism.
Whittam told the court that Ali had known her husband intended to commit an act of terrorism because he had written his will in March 2004.
Prosecutors said that police found notes, which Abdulla had made while listening to lectures on jihad, with his wife's fingerprints on them.
Militant Islamic books were also found in their one-bedroom flat in Walthamstow, east London, as was her husband's will.
In a police interview, she denied all knowledge of the plot, and said she thought her husband had bought a powdered drink, Tang, from Pakistan because he was developing his own product.
In fact, the powder was intended to be used to make liquid explosives, the court was told.
-Reuters
