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34 year-old Dhiren Barot, who worked for five years at Air Malta’s offices as a ticketing clerk in Regent Street, London, was yesterday jailed for a minimum 40 years by a British court, that found him guilty of being the boss of a British al-Qaeda cell, that plotted to kill thousands with bomb attacks and a fleet of limousines packed with explosives.
The Briton - that converted to Islam - was found guilty of planning back-to-back attacks to bring maximum death and destruction.
He was sentenced by a London court after pleading guilty last month to conspiracy to murder in a case sparked by the arrest of an al-Qaeda figure in Pakistan.
Barot, was accused of plotting to blow up the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Prudential in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey.
He was described by the presiding judge as a ‘determined and dedicated terrorist, a highly intelligent and extremely dangerous man’.
In Britain, Dhiran Barot conceived the ‘Gas Limos Project’, a scheme to blow up three limousines packed with gas cylinders in car parks underneath major buildings. Prosecutors said he carried out reconnaissance on leading London hotels and three railway stations. That plan was found in a file named ‘Eminem2.doc’ on a Toshiba laptop discovered by Pakistani police in July 2004 after they arrested Naeem Noor Khan, described as a major al-Qaeda figure.
Dhiran Barot and seven others, who will face trial next year, were arrested the following month in Britain.
Though Dhiran Barot is reported to have worked as an airline ticket clerk for Air Malta in Piccadilly, central London, between 1991 and 1995, it transpires that following internal investigations carried out by Air Malta, he worked at the previous branch office in Regent Street before the offices were transferred to the ground level of Malta House in Picadilly.
After school, Dhiran Barot gained a City and Guilds in tourism and worked in travel agencies and hotels before becoming an airline ticket clerk for Air Malta. He left after four years ‘to go travelling’. |
