UK News 18-08-2004 `Toxic Eight` Charged Over Dirty Bomb who: Metropolitan police what: Charge eight men with plotting to launch chemical and radioactive attacks where: PADDINGTON when: Yesterday snippet: Eight British men arrested in a nationwide anti-terrorist operation were charged last night" with plotting to commit murders and to launch radiological, chemical, gas or bomb attacks," reports today`s Telegraph. One member of the all-British gang is alleged to have been in possession of detailed "reconnaissance" plans of the International Monetary Fund building in Washington, the Citigroup financial institution office and the Stock Exchange in New York, leading police to believe that their targets were overseas rather than domestic. Other suspects were in possession of notebooks containing material on explosives, poisons, and chemicals and an extract from a publication entitled the `Terrorist`s Handbook`. The Times says that due to the nature of the alleged targets, the US may begin extradition proceedings against the some of the eight suspects, and that "senior US officials have already held high-level talks with Home Office lawyers and the police." Mudassar Arani, solicitor for seven of the men, complains to The Independent that her clients "have been psychologically abused by being held in solitary confinement and, in some cases, stopped from reading the Koran". She also claimed that one of her clients had been hit in the face by police when he was arrested. Regardless of the possibilities of extradition, the suspects face a maximum life sentence if convicted in Britain. [... more]

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