Grangemouth oil refinery was one of several possible targets for a gang accused of plotting to blow up at least seven passenger jets in mid-air, a court heard yesterday.
A memory stick discovered in the home of one of the eight men on trial in Woolwich Crown Court in London contained detailed research about UK oil refineries and terminals, including Grangemouth in Stirlingshire. The prosecution alleged that the information, which was found in Assad Sarwar's house, could refer to other possible targets for the gang.
Mr Sarwar and seven other men deny conspiring to murder thousands of people by exploding homemade liquid bombs disguised as drinks on aircraft.
Meanwhile, Kingston Crown Court in London heard that three friends of the July 7 suicide bombers helped them to locate potential targets in the capital.
The London Eye, the London Aquarium and the Natural History Museum were among attractions where Waheed Ali, Sadeer Saleem and Mohammed Shakil are alleged to have undertaken a "hostile reconnaissance", jurors heard.
The three men were not behind the attacks, which killed 52 people and injured almost 200 others, but shared the "objectives" and two of them accompanied the 7/7 ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan to Pakistan, the court heard.
Mr Ali, 24; Mr Saleem, 27; and Mr Shakil, 31, are accused of helping Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Jermain Lindsay and Hasib Hussain, in what prosecutors say was a reconnaissance mission for the attacks.
Mr Ali, from east London, and Mr Saleem and Mr Shakil, who are both from Leeds, deny conspiring with the four suicide bombers to cause explosions between November 17, 2004, and July 8, 2005.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article