A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist who was plotting to use the deadly poison ricin has been jailed for 22 years for the murder of a Special Branch detective, it was revealed today.
Kamel Bourgass, a 31-year-old failed Algerian asylum seeker, turned a Manchester flat into a bloodbath when he was cornered by police in 2003.
He grabbed a kitchen knife and killed Detective Constable Stephen Oake, stabbing him eight times. He also knifed three other policemen during his bloody escape bid.
At the time Bourgass, who was also known as Nadir Habra, was on the run after his attempts to make ricin and other poisons were discovered at a flat in Wood Green, north London, in a raid by anti-terrorist police nine days earlier.
Detectives believe he had been trained in terror camps in Afghanistan run by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and was specially selected for instruction in making poisons and explosives.
According to an alleged co-conspirator, who co-operated with authorities when he was arrested in Algeria, Bourgass was planning to smear poison on the door handles of cars and buildings in the Holloway area of north London.
Detectives believe he might also have had plans to use it in spray form or to contaminate consumer products.
In the London raid, police found accurate recipes and ingredients for poisons including ricin, cyanide and botulinum - one of the most toxic substances known to man - and the blueprint for a bomb.
A pestle and mortar hidden under a chest of drawers contained a substance which initially tested positive as ricin - although later tests were negative.
There had also been an attempt to make poison using nicotine extracted from cigarettes.
Scientists at the Porton Down chemical warfare laboratories in Wiltshire later followed the instructions in the recipes. Their experiments produced enough ricin and cyanide to kill hundreds of people.
-PA