UK terror suspect charged

Last Modified: 06 Jul 2007
By: Darshna Soni

Bilal Abdullah has been charged over the failed UK bomb attacks. Channel 4 News has been investigating the background of the other Indian suspects.

He is the first person to be charged over the failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. Channel 4 News has discovered the last words another suspect spoke to his family - before he drove a jeep into Glasgow airport.

One of them, Kafeel Ahmed, told his family: "I'm involved in a large scale confidential secret project, do not worry about me." before driving a burning jeep into a Glasgow airport terminal.

Australian police are now questioning five more hospital workers - all of them of Indian origin. It began with an arrest at Brisbane airport - an Indian doctor caught trying to leave the country and the investigation has now spread across the continent.

Doctor Mohammed Haneef was detained on Monday, in Queensland. Detectives have now linked him to Western Australia - last night, four of his associates were questioned there and released without charge. Another fifth doctor was questioned in New South Wales.

They are all thought to be of Indian origin and have worked in hospitals

Australian federal police have been given four days to sift through evidence seized from their homes and from hospitals. Once they've analysed this, they'll go back to questioning Dr Haneef.

We know that he's related to the man who tried to attack Glasgow airport - the driver of the jeep, Kafeel Ahmed. His brother was also arrested, in Liverpool.

'I'm involved in a large scale confidential project. I cannot reveal the details'
Kafeel Ahmed

The family are from Bangalore in India. Channel 4 News has learnt that before he left Bangalore for the last time, Kafeel Ahmed had an intriguing conversation.

He told his parents: "I'm involved in a large scale confidential project. I cannot reveal the details. It involves a lot of travelling. The project has to be started in the United Kingdom.

"Various people from various countries are involved in this. There is an Indian with me and he is helping me out. He has given me his car for travelling. I will not be available by any means, phone or internet, so please do not worry."

And then just before the attack he called his parents again and said: "I had told you earlier that some time in the future I will be inaccessible, that time has come now.

"I will go to that place, finish that work and go to London and return to Bangalore from there."

Line of inquiry

One line of inquiry is whether he tried to bomb London last Thursday - and when two detonators failed to explode in cars left outside busy locations, travelled back to Glasgow for the airport attack.

What could have motivated him? The Ahmeds are from the state of Banashankari. Kafeel's family are all doctors - but he studied engineering.

His parents, who had lived in Iran, moved the family to Saudi Arabia 1983 before finally returning to Bangalore.

In 2001, Kafeel left India and joined Queens University in Belfast to study aeronautical engineering. We spoke to former friends there.

Kafeel then went to the prestigious Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge to do a PhD. That's where he met some of the other suspects.

He eventually ended up sharing a house with one of them in Paisley. Bilal Abdulla was a passenger in the jeep used in the Glasgow attack.

It was these two men who carried out the attack on Glasgow Airport last Saturday.