Brother of Glasgow Airport suicide bomber Kafeel Ahmed arrested over alleged terror plot

Ex-NHS doctor Sabeel Ahmed was identified by anti-terrorism detectives as being behind a secret campaign to get youths to join Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Reports from India reveal say that The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested 38-year-old Bengaluru-based doctor Sabeel Ahmed in New Delhi after he was deported from Saudi Arabia.

Dr Sabeel Ahmed was held in connection with the alleged 2012 LeT recruitment plot registered by the Bengaluru City Police.

Sabeel Ahmed is the younger brother of Kafeel Ahmed, an aeronautical engineer who died after driving a car bomb into Glasgow Airport in June, 2007.

Dr Ahmed who was in London, was deported to India the same year as he had not disclosed the plot.

In 2010, he is said to have moved to Saudi Arabia and was working at King Fahad Hospital. Sources said that he was arrested on Friday and brought to Bengaluru on Sunday. He is due before a court on Monday.

In 2008 Sabeel Ahmed pleaded guilty at London's Old Bailey to withholding information from police about the Glasgow attack.

The doctor was given an 18-month sentence - but was freed immediately to be deported to India because of the time served on remand.

Ahmed's brother Kafeel wrote an email on the day of the attack - but the doctor did not disclose it to police.

When the doctor was first linked to the LeT case in 2013, he had denied any knowledge of the conspiracy.

Fourteen of 17 people arrested (out of 25 accused) in the case have pleaded guilty and have been released after serving jail terms.

“He (Sabeel Ahmed) was brought on transit warrant to Bengaluru and we will request the court for his custody as he needs to be questioned as part of the probe,” an official said.

The case was initially registered by the Bengaluru City Police at Basaveshwara Nagar police station and was taken over by the NIA.

Investigations had revealed the alleged conspiracy to commit terrorist activities in India by a LeT-supported network of terrorists based abroad and their associates in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.

The NIA had named 25 people as accused and had arrested 17. Of them, 14 had pleaded guilty and were released after serving jail term.

As part of the conspiracy, the accused had allegedly decided to kill select targets — prominent politicians and journalists who were inclined to right-wing ideologies, including present BJP MP Pratap Simha who was then a columnist — in Bengaluru, Hubballi, Hyderabad and Nanded intending to spread terror and communal disharmony.

Kafeel Ahmed, who had a PhD in engineering, drove a burning Cherokee Jeep into the terminal building at Glasgow Airport, an attack watched by travellers who escaped serious injury.

He was arrested at the scene after being hosed down by an off-duty police officer - but he had already suffered 90% burns. He died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 2 August.

The Old Bailey heard that Kafeel had texted Sabeel, a doctor who was based in Liverpool, shortly before the attack. It alerted Sabeel to a draft e-mail available to read online.

Sabeel Ahmed opened the e-mail after the attack had taken place and learned of his brother's intentions, the court heard.

In the e-mail, Kafeel Ahmed, who had a PhD in engineering said he would have achieved his goal by the time the message had been read.

The chilling email said: "This is the project that I was working on for some time now everything else was a lie."

It added: "It's about time that we give up our lives and our families for the sake of Islam to please Allah."

It also pointed out he had not said anything beforehand for the safety of both his brother and the "project".

He appealed to his brother to keep it secret for as long as possible and to appear shocked if told of what had happened.

He suggested telling people that he had gone to Iceland as part of a research project on global warming.

The e-mail, written two days before the failed attack, directed Sabeel Ahmed to online documents containing his brother's will and instructions on how to frustrate and mislead investigators.

Prosecuting, Jonathan Laidlaw told the court the e-mail amounted to instructions from Kafeel to frustrate the police - and that it would have been of "considerable assistance" to the authorities had it been handed over immediately.