Police under fire over failed London attacks

LONDON (AFP) - Britain's security forces came under fire Tuesday for missing chances to stop botched suicide bombings in London two years ago, after a court convicted four men and weighed more verdicts.

The criticism came after Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, Yassin Omar, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Hussain Osman, 28, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder in a failed bid to set off bombs on the transport network on July 21, 2005.

Jurors in the six-month trial at high-security Woolwich Crown Court, southeast London, have not yet reached verdicts on two other alleged July 21 plotters -- Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, and Adel Yahya, 24.

They were continuing their deliberations Tuesday and sentencing will take place after the remaining two verdicts are reached.

Specifically police and the security services faced questions over how Ibrahim, the plot's "emir" who was born in Asmara, now the capital of Eritrea, was allowed to leave Britain while facing charges over extremist behaviour.

Despite being on bail, Ibrahim -- who was found guilty of having tried and failed to explode a home-made bomb on a London bus -- travelled to Pakistan in December 2004 to a militant training camp, the court heard.

He was there at the same time as Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the four men convicted of the Islamist suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, which killed 52 London commuters in addition to the bombers.

Ibrahim's visit to Pakistan came two months after he had been charged with threatening behaviour for distributing extremist Islamist literature in London.

While overseas, a warrant was issued for his arrest after he missed a court appearance, but he was not required to return to court after he arrived back in Britain in March 2005.

David Davis, the spokesman for security issues for the opposition Conservative party, said the government had to put better security measures in place.

"This trial has revealed that Ibrahim, the ringleader in the 21/7 plot, was allowed to leave the country to train at a camp in Pakistan and return to plan and attempt the attack on 21/7," David said.

"This was despite the fact that he was facing criminal charges for extremism," he added.

"When will the government answer our call to establish a dedicated UK border police force to secure our porous borders?," he said.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police defended how the police handled Ibrahim's case, saying he was on bail and not a wanted man when he left Britain.

He was facing a minor charge under the Public Order Act that would not appear on the database for immigration checks, he added.

It also emerged during the trial that Ibrahim, who trained for Jihad in Sudan in 2003, had been photographed by surveillance officers on a camping trip in northern England's Lake District six months before being arrested.

He was only identified by police after the failed July 21 attacks.