BRITAIN: Eleven people have been remanded in custody in connection with alleged plots to blow up transatlantic airliners.
A young mother of an eight-month-old baby and a 17-year-old youth were among the 11 who appeared yesterday at City of Westminster Magistrates Court in central London.
In a series of short hearings, eight men, aged between 19 and 28, appeared accused of conspiracy to murder and preparing an act of terrorism.
They were Tanvir Hussain (25), no fixed abode; Umar Islam (28), east London; Arafat Waheed Khan (25), Walthamstow, east London; Ahmed Abdullah Ali (25), Walthamstow; Ibrahim Savant (25), north London; Waheed Zaman (22), Walthamstow; Assad Ali Sarwar (26), High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and Adam Khatib (19), Walthamstow.
No formal pleas were entered and no application for bail was made. All eight were remanded in custody until September 4th, to reappear at the Old Bailey.
They were later taken from court in police vans escorted by police convoys and taken to Belmarsh high security jail in Plumstead, east London.
The remaining three defendants appeared before the court in the afternoon charged under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The 17-year-old youth is accused of having a book on improvised explosive devices, some suicide notes and wills with the identities of persons prepared to commit acts of terror, and a map of Afghanistan. No application for bail was made and he was remanded in custody for a week.
Cossar Ali (24), Walthamstow, is accused of failing to disclose information which might be of "material assistance" in preventing her husband, Ahmed Abdullah Ali, from committing a terrorist act. Mehran Hussain (23), Chingford, east London, is accused of failing to disclose information which might be of material assistance in preventing Nabeel Hussain from committing a terrorist act.