Terror suspect Abid Naseer
Abid Naseer, a suspected terrorist accused of orchestrating an al Qaeda plot to set off bombs in the centre of Manchester, has been extradited to the US.
Naseer was arrested in 2009 by the police in a counter-terrorism operation in along with eleven other people, mostly Pakistani nationals who had come to the UK as students, in Manchester and Liverpool. However, no-one was charged as a result of these raids to prevent what then Prime Minister Gordon Brown described “a very big terrorist plot”.
Naseer was described by a High Court judge as a “serious threat to national security”, and his extradition has come after his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights was thrown out in December. He could not be deported to Pakistan as he would likely have faced torture if returned, and the US wanted to extradite him on a number of terrorism charges.
The FBI allege that Naseer was part of an international terror plot which included a thwarted suicide attack on the New York subway, and he has been charged there with conspiracy to use a firearm and providing material support for a “foreign terrorist organisation”.
Nasser will stand trial later this year and faces a possible life-sentence in a high security “supermax” prison if found guilty.