Ricin!: The Inside Story of the Terror Plot That Never Was

221 Pages·2010·4.71 MB·English

by  Lawrence Archer

Ricin!
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Ricin!
The Inside Story of the
Terror Plot that Never Was
Lawrence Archer
and
Fiona Bawdon
Foreword by
Michael Mansfield QC
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First published 2010 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
www.plutobooks.com
Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon 2010
The right of Lawrence Archer and Fiona Bawdon to be identified as
the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 2928 4 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 2927 7 Paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from
fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and
manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental
standards of the country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, 33 Livonia Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9JB, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in the European Union by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
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This book is dedicated to the British jury system
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Contents
List of Photographs viii
Foreword by Michael Mansfield QC ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction 1
1 The Trial 5
2 The Road from Algeria to the UK 46
3 Everything Changes on 9/11 68
4 Mohammed Meguerba 93
5 Arrests 107
6 Kamel Bourgass 126
7 What Ricin? 137
8 Backlash 143
9 Legacy 161
Appendices 179
A. Dramatis Personae 179
B. Timeline 183
C. Significant Addresses 189
Notes 193
Index 197
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List of Photographs
(between pages 83–92)
1. Daily Mirror front page, 8 January 2003.
2. Kamel Bourgass, the only one of the five ricin
defendants to be convicted.
3. The shabby flat above a chemist shop in Wood Green,
north London, labelled by the media the ‘factory of
death’, following the police raid on 5 January 2003.
4. The exterior of flats in Crumpsall Lane, Manchester.
5. A police officer places flowers outside the Crumpsall
Lane property following the tragic death of Stephen
Oake.
6. Abu Hamza al-Masri, the firebrand preacher
associated with the Finsbury Park Mosque.
7. The Finsbury Park Mosque in north London.
8. Blackstock Road, known as ‘Little Algeria’.
9. A Metropolitan Police handout photo, showing AA
and other batteries, torch bulbs, superglue, a headset
and various other items.
10. Items recovered from the Wood Green raid.
11. Acquitted defendant Mouloud Sihali.
viii
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Foreword
Just occasionally you read something which stops you in
your tracks. It startles. It reveals. It provokes. This is one
such book.
In this age of information overload, of quick-fix sound
bites, one event comes fast upon another. Memories fade.
Lessons are not learnt. Fact becomes fiction. Myth merges
into a mélange of accepted wisdom.
In this instance a myth was perpetrated and perpetuated
by the media and by senior UK and US politicians alike. It
spread like wildfire, fanning the flames of fear and fuelling the
call to arms. The repercussions at all levels – for world peace,
democratic accountability and the rule of law – continue to
reverberate right through to the present. It concerns a ricin plot
that never was. Cutting through this quagmire to restore truth,
and its handmaiden justice, from the trappings of prejudice
and preconception takes tenacity and fortitude. Above all it
requires an independence of mind and spirit to ensure that
ordinary common sense prevails. The English Common Law
has habitually invoked the apocryphal ‘man/woman on the
Clapham Omnibus’ as a paradigm for these purposes.
In real life we use a jury in the criminal courts to perform
this role. A few (12) of our number, representing a randomly
selected cross-section of the public, are entrusted to examine
the evidence and pass judgement in the form of a verdict.
They provide the ultimate protective bastion against arbitrary
and overweening governance and they have been doing so
ix
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