Wife of terror plotter is cleared

THE wife of convicted airliner bomb plotter Abdulla Ahmed Ali has been found not guilty of failing to pass on information that would be useful in preventing an act of terrorism.

Cossor Ali, 28, was cleared by a jury at Inner London Crown Court following a three-week trial.

Her husband was found guilty last September over the foiled plot to blow up transatlantic airliners.

As she was cleared yesterday, Mrs Ali cried "thank you, thank you, thank you", then fled the courtroom.

During the trial, prosecutors argued Mrs Ali knew her husband planned mass murder but failed to tell police. However, the jury believed her defence, that she did not know anything about it.

Prosecutor Richard Whittam, QC, argued that Mrs Ali began to sympathise with her husband.

In an entry she made in a notebook in 2005 when she was waiting for him to return from Pakistan, she wrote: "I am growing more and more attached to the cause for which you are striving for (sic], and the reason for which we are apart.

"I hope and pray Allah grants your wish and gives you the highest level of Shahada (martyrdom]."

The prosecution also said she knew her husband planned to carry out a terrorist attack since he wrote his will in March 2004.

Police found notes which Ali had made while listening to lectures on jihad, which had his wife's fingerprints on them, the court heard.

Islamic extremist books were also found in their flat in Walthamstow, east London. And Ali had made a suicide video for release after the transatlantic bomb plot, in which he threatened more attacks.

But when she was arrested in August 2006, Mrs Ali burst into tears and denied all knowledge of the plot in a police interview.