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Plot to blow up US airliners foiled by chemistry accident |
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Written by asap
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Friday, 11 August 2006 |
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This isn’t the first time someone has planned to blow up American airliners with liquid bombs.
A similar plan was hatched by Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad in 1995. The two planned to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the Pacific.
Yousef did a test run in December 1994, smuggling nitroglycerine onto a Philippine Airlines jet in a contact lens solution bottle. The explosive detonated near Okinawa, killing a Japanese man after Yousef had gotten off the plane in Cebu. The plane managed to land safely in Okinawa.
CAUGHT:
The plot was foiled by Murad’s arrest in January 1995 after a fire broke out in the apartment he shared with Yousef. When fire crews came, Yousef had disappeared but Murad explained they were playing with fireworks for a delayed New Years’ Eve celebration.
Police returned later and searched the apartment thoroughly. They found explosives, wires, Bibles, pictures of the pope and maps of the papal route. Police staked out the apartment and were waiting when Murad returned about 2 a.m.
Under intensive interrogation over time, Murad gave up a plot -- to kill the pope and blow up American planes. Corroborating evidence was found on a laptop and diskettes.
Three days after Murad’s arrest, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration issued a security alert for all American airliners flying over the Pacific, including a ban on hand-carried liquids, aerosols and shaving cream.
Yousef slipped out of the country and made his way to Pakistan, where he was arrested a month later and sent to the United States. Murad was extradited to the United States the following April and testified against Yousef.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Both are serving life without parole at the Florence Super-Max federal prison in Colorado. | Only registered users can write comments.
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