A former Taliban bomb-maker who was arrested meters from the gates of parliament armed with knives has been convicted of plotting to kill police and MPs, according to Guardian report.
Khalid Ali, 28, disappeared in 2011 from his family home in north London and dropped out of sight for nearly six years while he built hundreds of bombs at an al-Qaida-linked Taliban training camp in Afghanistan, according to the report.
Upon his return to Britain in November 2016 he was stopped at Heathrow and his fingerprints were matched to records held by the FBI in the US, who had found the same prints on bomb components seized in Afghanistan. The match triggered a UK investigation into Ali involving covert surveillance, it said.
Ali, a plumber, was ultimately stopped in a dramatic arrest that was caught on video in April last year near the Palace of Westminster. He was carrying three knives. Further investigation revealed he had staked out potential targets including New Scotland Yard, the MI6 headquarters and parliament.
On Tuesday he was convicted by a jury at the Old Bailey of two counts of possessing an explosive substance in relation to his activities in Afghanistan and one count of preparing terrorist acts in relation to his plans in Westminster.
The deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon, Scotland Yard’s senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, said “Ali was an incredibly dangerous individual who had returned from a training camp in Afghanistan with a determination to kill police officers, the military or parliamentarians here in the UK.”
Ali, a naturalised British citizen, told his parents he was going to Birmingham on a plumbing job before he disappeared in 2011. “He left the UK and ended up in Afghanistan, in a Taliban training camp affiliated to al-Qaida, where for several years he helped terrorists make hundreds of bombs capable of mass murder,” Haydon said.
The In depended also reported that in an interview with officers, Ali said he wanted to deliver a message to British leaders telling them to leave “Muslim lands”, destroy the state of Israel and release prisoners of war.
“I would consider myself as a mujahid [Islamic warrior],” he added. “Jihad is what we do… and I am here to let you know the reason why I have come with the message, for you to make the right decisions, if not… we have a lot of time. UK is next on the list.”
Ali declared his loyalty to the Taliban and told how he made bombs and “pressed the button” more than 300 times in attacks targeting American and British soldiers spanning five years.
He denied terror offences but when asked why he was carrying knives on the day of his arrest, Ali replied: “I had the knives ready to kill, but only in self-defence.”