Top terrorist is jailed

A JUDGE today called on the Government to "urgently" consider providing greater sentencing powers as he jailed a top international terrorist for just nine years.
Mr Justice Fulford said Pakistan-trained terror leader Mohammed Ajmal Khan was a "person of authority" in an organisation with "clear links" to al-Qaeda.
As "quartermaster" for the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyiba - the so-called Army of the Righteous, which amongst other things opposes India’s control of Kashmir - he could call on millions of pounds raised by UK supporters for a shopping list of arms and military equipment.
In the judge's view the powers of punishment available to the court in such cases was not sufficient.
The conspiracy the 31-year-old defendant had admitted carried a maximum sentence of only 14-years' imprisonment.
"I consider the seriousness of terrorist offences of this kind is such that the government should give serious and urgent consideration to the question as to whether the maximum sentence for offences in this category are sufficient.
"Involvement in this kind of crime is often so serious and the consequences can be so grave, that I am of the view that greater maximum sentences are needed to enable judges to reflect more realistically the gravity of terrorism which does not need me to say is of great public concern."
The current maximum could, in some cases, be regarded as "wholly inadequate", said the judge.
"In my view the court should have the option of passing a discretionary life sentence."
Conceding that judges did have the option of imposing an "indeterminate" term, the necessary criteria had not been met in the case.
Khan, of Ransom Road, Coventry, remained emotionless in the dock at London's Snaresbrook Crown Court as the judge told him: "Terrorism is one of the undoubted evils of our age.
"It profoundly affects countless numbers of innocent, law-abiding people both directly and indirectly.
"The toll in lost and shattered lives, the economic consequences and the general misery that follows each and every terrorist outrage means that anyone who lends him or herself to this kind of activity has put themselves in my view in one of the most serious if not the most serious criminal category."
He continued: "You, Mohammed Ajmal Khan, in my view, are a committed terrorist.
"By your presence in other countries on a significant number of occasions in the past and by your organisations generally it is rightly said that you are a person of authority within the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
"On this subject I have found the evidence compelling."
He said Khan had not only trained in Pakistan and "travelled widely infurtherance of your terrorist aims", but had available a "significant" source of funds from an "unidentified but undeniably terrorist-related source."
"In all the circumstances the prosecution have appropriately judged you to be an important figure in a terrorist network which had clear and important links with parallel terrorist networks," the judge told him.
The judge said that in particular the Crown had established clearcooperative links between Lashkir-e-Tayyiba and al-Qaeda.
"And you were personally protected by others who played a more conspicuous frontline role that helped you to keep your involvement concealed.
"It is of real note you went to Pakistan shortly after 9/11 where you gained an important position within that organisation.
"In the end you acted as a terrorist quartermaster, gathering anddistributing a stockpile of equipment for use in Pakistan and/or Afghanistan and probably elsewhere."
Not only that, but he had used the assets available to him to "cynicallyprofiteer out of terrorism" and put cash in his own pocket.
The judge said any mitigation available to him was undermined by the fact he was a "long-term terrorist" and his involvement in a banned organisation following the 9/11 outrage.
The judge jailed him for eight years for one offence under the Criminal Law Act of plotting between March 2001 and March 2005 to "enter into or become concerned in an arrangement" whereby money and property was to be made available for the "purpose of terrorism".
A further year was then added for "blatant" contempt of court in repeatedly refusing to answer questions when called as a defence witness in the case of an alleged co-conspirator subsequently acquitted at an earlier trial.


It sends a clear message to anyone prepared to train as a terrorist or support terrorism Peter Clarke Scotland Yard