8 were acquitted, one was convicted. From the BBC, :
An al-Qaeda suspect who stabbed to death a policeman has been jailed for 17 years for plotting to spread ricin and other poisons on the UK’s streets.
Kamel Bourgass, 31, is already serving a life term after being convicted of murdering Detective Constable Stephen Oake during a 2003 raid in Manchester.
Four other men were cleared last week of taking part in a conspiracy. A second trial has been abandoned.
Anti-terror chief Peter Clarke said a “real and deadly threat” was averted.
The BBC’s Home Editor Mark Easton says the authorities in Britain believe there was a plan to co-ordinate chemical and biological attacks across Europe.
In London targets were to include the underground.
And in Paris the authorities suspect the Metro and Eiffel Tower could have been attacked.
In a statement, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke said: “The impact on the public, if he [Bourgass] had succeeded in what he wanted to do, is incalculable.”
And, paying tribute to DC Oake, he went on: “He died protecting the public from a vicious terrorist.
“It would be hard to underestimate the fear and disruption this plot could have caused across the country.”
Cyanide poison
Anti-terrorist squad officers found a suspected chemical weapons laboratory when they raided a flat in Wood Green, north London, in January 2003.
They discovered castor oil beans – the raw material for ricin – along with equipment needed to produce it and recipes for ricin, cyanide, botulinum and other poisons, along with instructions for
explosives.After the raid police launched a nationwide search to find Bourgass, who fled from London to Manchester, where he was captured on 14 January 2003.
It was there, during a desperate bid to get away, that he stabbed DC Oake to death with a kitchen knife and injured four other officers.
In June 2004 Bourgass was jailed for life for DC Oake’s murder and told he must serve at least 20 years behind bars….
In his statement, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke added: “We must also remember that this case was about a conspiracy between a small group of terrorists.
“I would like to make it absolutely clear, as I have in the past, that the police service knows that they are not representative of the overwhelming majority of the law-abiding Muslim community who have stated their total rejection of violence and terrorism.”
Well, since the “overwhelming majority of the law-abiding Muslim community” have clearly “stated their total rejection of violence and terrorism,” I guess that settles it then…but I do wonder: remember the openly pro-Osama, pro-jihad terror group Al-Muhajiroun? Before they disbanded, they were identified here as the UK’s largest Muslim group. So what is Clarke’s evidence for this “overwhelming majority”?