Ireland's first al-Qaeda suspect convicted this week of terrorist activity had drifted for over a decade under many identities, writes Mary Fitzgerald
It began with the opening words of the Fatiha - the first surah or chapter of the Koran. "In the name of Allah, most gracious most merciful. Praise be to Allah, the cherisher and sustainer of the worlds; most gracious most merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment." What followed were detailed instructions in Arabic on how to blow up an airplane.
On Thursday Abbas Boutrab, Ireland's first al-Qaeda suspect to stand trial, was found guilty in Belfast Crown Court of collecting and possessing information connected with terrorism after he downloaded this material from the Internet. Boutrab was also convicted of possessing a false passport. He will be sentenced on December 19th.
The conviction was the culmination of a long and exhaustive investigation by PSNI detectives working with the Garda, the FBI and police in France, Italy and the Netherlands.
For Boutrab, it was the ignominious end to more than a decade of clandestine wandering around Europe, relying on odd jobs and false documentation to keep one step ahead of the immigration authorities. For the PSNI, it meant taking what they described as a "very dangerous man" and a "determined terrorist" off the streets.
During his six-week trial which ended last month, Boutrab, charged under three different aliases, denied he had downloaded material on to 25 computer disks "for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism".
The presiding judge, Mr Justice Weatherup, was not convinced. Convicting Boutrab, he said that while downloading such details and using false identities did not amount to terrorist activity in themselves, their combined use did.
Weatherup rejected defence claims that Boutrab was innocent and had only accessed the material "out of curiosity". Instead, he accepted the prosecution case that far from being a "drifter" as he claimed, Boutrab had been travelling around Europe for a decade using several false identities, "to conceal himself as he carried out his sinister activities".
The judge said that Boutrab's lies about possessing a cassette player from which components for an improvised bomb had been removed, having precision engineering tools, false passports and identities were all "evidence supportive of guilt".
Sitting quietly in the sleekly modern surroundings of Belfast's glass-fronted Crown Court last week, the man known as Abbas Boutrab was a long way from his humble beginnings in a rundown suburb of Algiers.
In interviews conducted with The Irish Times by telephone and in the visiting room at Maghaberry prison where he spent more than two years on remand, Boutrab, a short, wiry man with a long black beard, told how he had left Algeria soon after dropping out of school at 14.
Though he was described as being 27 years old in court documents, Boutrab told The Irish Times he was 32. He also admitted Abbas Boutrab was not his real name. Despite insisting he was still in touch with his family in Algeria, he appeared estranged from them, at one point saying he was unsure how many brothers and sisters he had.
He described a life of drifting through Europe, travelling first to Spain, then on to France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and finally Ireland.
Detectives say he first came to police attention in Paris in 1992, using the name Mourad Benali, when he was arrested for snatching a handbag. He next turned up in the Netherlands where he applied for political asylum in 1995 using the name of Brahim Abaoui. His two applications for asylum were rejected.
According to police, he surfaced in Ireland in 2001 when he applied for asylum using the name Yocef Djafari. He disappeared after a deportation order was issued for him. A year later he featured on a Garda wanted poster following a stabbing in Lucan. At that time he was using the name David Giam Pellegrini.
Boutrab said he crossed the border into Northern Ireland after realizing the Garda were looking for him. Using yet another false identity, this time the name of Fabio Parenti, an Italian tourist whose passport had been stolen in Dublin airport, Boutrab got a job as a cleaner in a Belfast hotel. Another attempt to claim asylum proved unsuccessful.
IN APRIL 2003 Boutrab was arrested during an immigration raid on a flat he shared with other foreign nationals in the Shore Road area of north Belfast. A detective from a specialist police unit, whose duties also include the registration and monitoring of nationals from "42 different countries who pose a threat to the UK", told the trial that after the raid it was discovered Boutrab looked similar to a man featured on a Garda wanted poster.
During a follow-up visit to the flat, police found 25 computer disks containing instructions on how to make a device suitable for detonating on a passenger jet, how to smuggle the bomb on board, and how to construct a firearm silencer from household items such as metal tubing, a pot scourer and rubber door stops. A number of false identities and passports were also seized.
During his trial, it emerged Boutrab had downloaded the information using public computer terminals at Belfast's Central Library on January 23rd, 2003.
In 2003, the High Court in Belfast was told the documents stored on the disks were "something of a terrorist manual". A crown lawyer said at the time that they appeared to relate to "al-Qaeda terrorism".
Boutrab told The Irish Times he had downloaded the material out of curiosity.
"I had the jihadist's manual and an Afghan book about military training," he said. "I got it from the Internet, from Muslim websites. I was just curious. I didn't know it was prohibited. These are only documents, not bombs."
During the trial Donald Sachtleben, an FBI explosives expert who has investigated the US embassy bombing in Nairobi and the Oklahoma bombing, demonstrated how the instructions stored on the disks could be used to construct a bomb capable of downing an aircraft.
Sachtleben's team made four 200g devices from the three listed ingredients, and packed them into canisters of talcum powder. Testing the bombs, the FBI experts discovered the devices blew apart a row of airline seats and ripped through the cabin shell beside them.
Sachtleben said the instructions claimed the device could be easily smuggled onto a plane for assembly in the toilet by a suicide bomber "using average mechanical skills and manual dexterity". The instructions advised the bomber to work alone, citing the case of failed shoe bomber Richard Reid, and urged the volunteer to "blow the aircraft up with yourself and may God accept you".
Defence lawyers countered that no explosives were found in Boutrab's flat and no evidence was offered suggesting he was in contact with anyone who would provide the material.
Defence QC Frank O'Donoghue had earlier argued that Boutrab should be acquitted because the evidence against him "is of such a tenuous nature that no jury properly directed could safely convict him".
Judge Weatherup dismissed as unsubstantiated allegations by the prosecution that Boutrab had contact with individuals who had wider terrorist connections. It was alleged that he was in contact with Abu Hamza, a radical Muslim cleric currently facing 16 charges in the UK, including incitement to murder and stirring up racial hatred. Boutrab admitted he had made several visits to Finsbury Park mosque in north London, where Abu Hamza was the imam.
THE COURT ALSO heard that during police interviews Boutrab said "I am not answering that" when asked whether he was involved in Islamist terrorism or was part of an al-Qaeda network.
When The Irish Times asked Boutrab about links with al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist organizations such as the GIA in Algeria, he denied having anything to do with them.
"Like everybody else, I've heard and read about them but I don't have any connection with anything like that," he said. "I practise my religion like every other Muslim but I am not political.
"I have never been to Pakistan or Afghanistan. I have never been outside Europe since I left Algeria at the age of 14. I don't have any contact with Islamist organisations." Boutrab claimed the whole case against him was built on racial and religious discrimination. "The fact that I am Muslim, Algerian and illegal is enough. There is nothing against me. This is a matter of victimization and discrimination," he said.
He alleged he was the victim of mistreatment in prison and went on hunger strike earlier this year in protest at his detention. He told The Irish Times he was worried about spending more time in prison and talked of wanting to go back to Algeria. "All I ever wanted to do was make money and return to my country. My father died last year. I would like to see my family again and maybe get married," he said.
Boutrab was tried under the non-jury Diplock court system introduced in Northern Ireland in 1973 to counter concerns of juror intimidation in republican and loyalist trials. His is the first non-Troubles related case to go before a Diplock court. The trial and outcome coincide with the debate in Britain over introducing a similar non-jury system for trying al-Qaeda suspects.
Speaking after the verdict was delivered on Thursday afternoon, PSNI Detective Superintendent Esmond Adair described it as "an important conviction that has removed a very dangerous man from our streets".
Adair, who led the police investigation, added: "Abbas Boutrab remains a determined terrorist who has become expert in the procurement and forging of false identities. I believe he has a strong allegiance to a terrorist group that is linked to the al-Qaeda network. It is worthwhile remembering that those who are involved in this kind of terrorism are extremists and in no way representative of the vast majority of the law-abiding Muslim community."