Four London suspects appear in court

LONDON -- Four men who allegedly botched an attempt to duplicate the deadly bombings on London's public transportation system appeared in court yesterday amid what police described as the tightest security ever in Britain for a legal hearing.

The four men did not enter pleas at the high-security court next to Belmarsh Prison in East London, and were ordered held without bail pending another hearing at London's famed Old Bailey court on Nov. 14.

Three of the men -- Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, Ramzi Mohammed, 23, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24 -- were charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possession of explosives, and conspiracy to cause explosions. Ibrahim is accused of getting on a bus, and Mohammad, Omar, and a man being held by authorities in Rome, Osman Hussain, 27, are accused of getting on subway trains with backpacks filled with explosives on July 21. Police say the men wanted to duplicate the bombings that killed 52 commuters, and four suspected suicide bombers, two weeks earlier, but that the bombs failed to detonate.

A fourth man who appeared at Belmarsh yesterday, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 32, was charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. He is accused of dumping an unexploded bomb in a park near the West London apartment block where Ibrahim and Mohammad were arrested in a dramatic, televised raid on July 29.

Three men accused of helping the others to evade arrest -- Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, 30, Wharbi Mohammed, 22, and Asias Girma, 20 -- also appeared in court at Belmarsh and indicated they would plead not guilty on Thursday, when they face another hearing.

All of the men who appeared at Belmarsh arrived in a caravan of armored police vehicles that left the high-security police station at Paddington Green in West London and sped across the metropolis, followed by a helicopter with heavily armed officers. Police officials said the carefully choreographed caravan, with armed officers along the route, was bigger than any operation involving Irish Republican Army suspects, amounting to the tightest security ever for a prisoner transport operation in Britain.

So far, 13 people have been charged in the July 21 plot: three with trying to carry it out, Asiedu with abandoning his part in the conspiracy, and the rest with helping the men avoid police. Police said Hussain will be charged as soon as he returns from Italy, where he is fighting extradition. There are three other people still in custody under interrogation, but police said they believe those directly involved in the plot have all been charged.

In lodging charges, police dismissed Hussain's contention to Italian investigators that he and his fellow conspirators were not trying to kill anyone when they brought the devices onto the bus and trains. He said the men exploded detonator caps in an attempt to scare a public on edge over the deadly July 7 bombings.

But police say the forensic examination of the bombs show they were primed to detonate. The Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, has said the bombs did not explode because of a minor fault in their makeup, which he has refused to specify.

An alleged Al Qaeda operative, meanwhile, appeared at the same Belmarsh court yesterday and indicated he would fight a US extradition request. Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, a British citizen, is accused by US authorities of trying to set up an Al Qaeda training camp in Oregon in 1999. Police here have denied reports that Aswat was the suspected mastermind behind the July 7 attacks.

Also yesterday, British media said a fundamentalist Muslim cleric facing possible treason charges has left the country, the Associated Press reported.

Sheik Omar Bakri, founder and spiritual leader of the radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun, has been identified by British officials as one of a number of radical clerics who could face charges if their public remarks are deemed to have incited terrorism.

''He left on Saturday," Anjem Choudary, an associate, told Britain's Channel 4 television. ''He is considering his Islamic duties in Lebanon."

The report, which was also carried by Sky News and British Broadcasting Corp., could not immediately be confirmed. Al-Muhajiroun is to be banned under the antiterror laws unveiled by Prime Minister Tony Blair last week. Bakri, a 46-year-old Syrian native who came to Britain in 1985 after he was deported from Saudi Arabia, has claimed the group stopped its activities in Britain.

But in remarks following the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 people including the four bombers, Bakri reportedly said that he would not inform police if he knew Muslims were planning another attack. He also reportedly offered support for insurgents who attack troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.