- Ahla Arbid claimed her ex-boyfriend, a former BBC journalist, was part of terrorist plot to kill hundreds
- She sent emails to airport authorities claiming that his new bride was carrying explosives on flight from Iran
- Arbid and Hossain Ansari Pour had been in an Islamic 'temporary' marriage when he married his new wife
Jilted: Ahla Arbid admitted sending emails to airport authorities claiming her ex-lover's new wife was carrying explosives from Iran to the UK
A jilted lover is facing jail after she tried to convince airport authorities her ex-boyfriend's new bride was carrying a bomb aboard a passenger jet.
Ahla Arbid, 34, claimed that Hossain Ansari Pour, a former BBC journalist, was part of a terrorist plot to kill hundreds aboard an international flight.
She told airport security that his new wife, Sara Aryan Pour, was smuggling explosives as she travelled from Iran via Turkey to the UK.
The bogus warning sparked a major security alert.
Ms Aryan Pour was seized from her plane as it waited on the tarmac in Istanbul and searched, but no explosives were found.
Arbid, a mother of two, had been due to face a retrial after jurors failed to reach a verdict in her original trial.
But instead she pleaded guilty to one charge of communicating false information with intent.
At her first trial in August 2011 Southwark Crown Court heard Arbid made the hoax bomb warning to get back at Mr Hossain Pour after learning of his arranged marriage to Ms Aryan Pour.
Arbid confessed to sending the emails to airport authorities, but she claimed that her fears had been genuine.
Jurors heard Arbid and Mr Ansari Pour, who now works for Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones newswire, had met on an Islamic dating website and entered into a ‘temporary marriage’ in early 2010.
Mr Ansari Pour said he had already been taken his wedding vows twice, once in a ‘full’ Islamic marriage, from which he has an 11-year-old daughter, and in a previous ‘temporary’ marriage, which under Iranian law allows legal sexual relationships on a less formal basis.
He said that when he started seeing Arbid, he had told her that his parents were looking for a wife for him in a traditional arranged marriage.
He said: ‘Even on the first day that I met Ahla, I did tell her my parents were looking for a wife for me.’
The court heard that the couple entered into a sexual relationship, and that Arbid later told the journalist she was pregnant by him, subsequently having an abortion.
Mr Ansari Pour’s parents found him a bride in Iran, and although he was still engaged in his ‘temporary marriage’ to Arbid, he flew to his homeland for a religious wedding ceremony.
He then arranged for his new wife, Sara Aryan Pour, to come to Britain, booking her a flight to London via Turkey on 2 May last year.
After she discovered what was happening, Arbid contacted both the British Airports Authority and the authorities in Turkey to tell them that Miss Aryan Pour was carrying an ‘explosive substance’ to give to her husband in London.
Giving evidence Arbid denied that she had made the bomb threat to hit back at Mr Ansari Pour.
She told jurors she grew suspicious of him after she overheard him say in a series of phone conversations the ‘flight will fall’ and talk of ‘documents’, which she believed was a coded reference for explosive materials.
Arbid said she believed Miss Aryan Pour was going to meet a man by the name of Suleman Mohammed at Ataturk Istanbul airport to exchange the bomb parts.
She said: ‘I thought maybe they were planning for something; that he would meet her and they would do bomb building to make the flight fall.’
She claimed Hossain held ‘extreme’ views on religion and politics and felt duty bound to report her suspicions.
Arbid, of Pimlico, south-west London, admitted communicating false information with intent. She was remanded on bail ahead of sentence on April 19.
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