Doctor to be deported after Glasgow airport attacks

Chilling details about terrorist attacks planned for London and Scotland were revealed for the first time yesterday as an NHS doctor admitted withholding information about the plot.

Sabeel Ahmed, whose older brother Kafeel died after driving a car bomb into Glasgow airport, was jailed for 18 months, but will be deported back to his native India, having already served half his sentence on remand.

Ahmed, 26, was sent an ominous email about the mission from his brother two days before the attack on the air terminal, but failed to read it until afterwards. "This is the project that I was working on for some time now. Everything else was a lie. It's about time that we give up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam to please Allah," the email read.

Ahmed pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday to withholding information about terrorism, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, but had his tariff reduced because he had not seen the message prior to the strike.

"I accept that so far as you personally were concerned, there is no sign of your being an extremist or party to extremist views," said Mr Justice Calvert-Smith.

Ahmed, a former doctor with North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust, listened intently, head bowed, as the prosecution revealed new details of the attacks.

Jonathan Laidlaw, for the prosecution, said those behind the attacks wanted to coordinate a campaign of "large and spectacular" attacks "to maximise loss of life and maximise the level of fear ... of the threat from Islamic extremism".

Kafeel Ahmed rammed a Jeep Cherokee, laden with petrol and gas canisters, into Glasgow airport's main terminal building on 30 June last year. The improvised bomb failed to ignite and he died from 90 per cent burns several weeks later. The attack was planned for the busiest day of the year and people were queuing yards away as the passenger and Kafeel Ahmed threw fuel and petrol bombs. A number of people suffered minor injuries.

The attack came 24 hours after two Mercedes containing improvised bombs were found in London. In one case, the car was left outside a packed nightclub in Haymarket, but a mobile phone detonator failed. The second Mercedes, parked in Mayfair, was defused later.