British Airways Worker Convicted on Terrorism Charges

Rajib Karim, a "mild-mannered, well-educated and respectful" IT worker for British Airways, has been convicted on four counts relate to a plot to blow up an airliner. His plot was influenced by Jammat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and included sharing airline security information with al-Qaida preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.

"Karim's deep determination to plan terror attacks whatever the cost was frightening," said Colin Gibbs, a counter terrorism lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service. "He found a position as a software engineer, which the prosecution said he considered the perfect job, giving an opportunity sooner or later to fulfill his deadly objective."

Karim, who moved to Britain in 2006 from Bangladesh with his wife and son, admitted his involvement in the production of a pre-2006 terrorist video for JMB. But the prosecution exposed Karim as a man who "hid his view hatred of Western ways from colleagues by joining a gym, playing football and never airing extreme views," in order to pass sensitive information to Awlaki and plan a suicide attack on a British Airways flight.

"Although Rajib Karim went to great lengths to disguise his activities, experts from the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command spent nine months decrypting 300 coded messages found on his computer hard drive," stated Deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Stuart Osborne. "It was the most sophisticated decryption task of its kind ever undertaken by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command."

Related Topics: IPT News, British Airways, airliner, Anwar al-Awlaki

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