Yasin Hassan Omar

Last updated

Yasin Hassan Omar
Born (1983-01-01) 1 January 1983 (age 41)
Somalia
Arrested27 July 2005
Heybarnes Road, Small Heath, Birmingham
West Midlands Police
CitizenshipBritish, Somali
Other name(s) Yassen
Charge(s) Conspiracy to murder
Attempted murder
Possession of explosives
Penalty Life imprisonment, with possibility of parole after forty years served
StatusIncarcerated

Yasin Hassan Omar (sometimes spelt Yassin; born 1 January 1983) is a British Somali convicted terrorist. Omar was arrested and tried for his involvement in the attempted 21 July attacks on London's public transport system. He was found guilty of attempting to detonate a device on the London Underground Victoria line tube train between Warren Street and Oxford Circus tube stations. [1] In August 2005 police gave his age as 24 after his arrest. [2]

Contents

Omar's background

Omar was originally from Somalia and arrived in the UK as a child dependent of asylum seekers, in 1992. He was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2000. [1]

Arrest

Omar was one of four men arrested on Wednesday 27 July 2005 at 0430 BST, in a property on Heybarnes Road, in the Small Heath area of Birmingham. He was then taken to London's Paddington Green police station for questioning. [3]

Police used a 'Taser' stun gun to detain him. This was criticised as an incredible risk by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair, saying "If there is a bomb on that body, then the bomb is going to go off". West Midlands Police disagreed and said Sir Ian Blair did not know the full circumstances surrounding the arrest, but they still voluntarily referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. [4]

Charges

On 6 August 2005 he was charged with four criminal charges: [2]

Trial

On 28 April 2006, Omar, along with his co-accused pleaded not guilty to all charges against him [5] and was placed on trial with 5 other suspects. [6]

His fiancée, Fardosa Abdullah, was arrested on 4 October 2006. She was charged with assisting Omar in evading arrest and with failing to disclose information which could have led to Omar's arrest or conviction "as soon as reasonably practicable". [7] She was subsequently jailed for three years. [8]

On 9 July 2007, Yasin Hassan Omar was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of conspiracy to murder [9] and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of 40 years before being considered for release. [10]

Appeal

In April 2008, the court of appeal judges dismissed a challenge by Ibrahim, Omar, Mohammed and Osman to their convictions. [11]

In December 2014, an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights lodged in 2008 by the bombers, claiming that their rights were breached in the 'safety interviews' after their arrests, was rejected. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 for the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974, and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually quashed after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, diminished public confidence in the integrity of the English criminal justice system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of the 2005 London bombings</span> 7 July 2005 London bombings

The following is a timeline of the 7 July 2005 London bombings and 21 July 2005 London bombings.

Operation Crevice was a raid launched by Metropolitan and local police in England on the morning of 30 March 2004. It was in response to a report indicating cells of terrorists of Pakistani origin operating in the Thames Valley, Sussex, Surrey and Bedfordshire areas, the source of which was said to be an interception of an instruction sent from Al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to militants in Britain. In March 2020 Jonathan Evans, Former Director General, MI5 gave an interview and citing one passage: 'The plot itself, however, appeared to be encouraged and fomented by al-Qa`ida in the tribal areas. It was one of the early ones we saw. It involved predominantly British citizens or British residents of Pakistani heritage, something which became something of a theme for this period'. The operation resulted in five men being found guilty in April 2007 of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

On Thursday, 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks by Islamist extremists disrupted part of London's public transport system as a follow-up attack from the 7 July 2005 London bombings that occurred two weeks earlier. The explosions occurred around midday at Shepherd's Bush, Warren Street and Oval stations on the London Underground, and on London Buses route 26 in Haggerston on Hackney Road. A fifth bomber dumped his device without attempting to set it off.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, also known as Muktar Mohammed Said, is an Eritrean-British terrorist, who was found guilty of involvement in the attempted 21 July attacks on London's public transport system in 2005. He attempted to detonate a device on a London bus and was arrested sharing an apartment with Ramzi Mohammed on 29 July 2005. During the arrest, which culminated in Ramzi and Ibrahim standing near-naked on their balcony to avoid tear gas that police had used.

Ramzi Mohammed is a Somali national convicted of involvement in the attempted London bombing of 21 July 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamdi Adus Isaac</span> Member of al-Qaeda

Osman Hussain is a terrorist who was found guilty of having placed an explosive at the Shepherd's Bush tube station during the failed 21 July 2005 London bombings. Born in Ethiopia, Hussain is a naturalised British citizen married to Yeshshiemebet Girma.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Sharon Beshenivsky</span> Shooting of a British police officer

PC Sharon Beshenivsky was a West Yorkshire Police constable shot and killed by a criminal gang during a robbery in Bradford on 18 November 2005, becoming the seventh female police officer in Great Britain to be killed on duty. Her colleague, PC Teresa Milburn, was seriously injured in the same incident. Milburn had joined the force less than two years earlier; Beshenivsky had served only nine months as a Constable in the force at the time of her death, having been a Community Support Officer before.

The 2004 financial buildings plot was a plan led by Dhiren Barot to attack a number of targets in the U.S. and the United Kingdom which is believed to have been approved by al-Qaeda. The evidence against the plotters consisted of home videos, written notes, and files on computers. At the time of the arrests the group had no funding, vehicles, or access to bomb-making equipment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">21 July 2005 London bombings trial</span> July 2005 London bombings

On 15 January 2007 six men appeared at Woolwich Crown Court in connection with the attempted 21 July 2005 London bombings on London public transport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2007 London car bombs</span> Averted terrorist attack

On 29 June 2007, two car bombs in London were discovered and disabled before they could be detonated. The first device was left near the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket at around 01:30, and the second was left in Cockspur Street, located in close proximity to the nightclub.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohammed Asha</span> British neurosurgeon

Mohammed Jamil Abdelqader Ashar is a Saudi-born Jordanian doctor resident in the United Kingdom, who was a suspect arrested after the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack. He was charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions, but on 16 December 2008 was found not guilty and acquitted on all charges.

The New Cross double murder occurred on 29 June 2008. Two French research students, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, were stabbed to death in New Cross, London Borough of Lewisham in South East London, United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrorism in the United States</span> Systematic or threatened use of violence to create a general climate of fear

In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.

Sir Colman Maurice Treacy is a retired Lord Justice of Appeal. Previously, he was a barrister in Birmingham. He presided over a number of criminal trials, including those of an Afghan warlord, Faryadi Sarwar Zardad, and two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2006 transatlantic aircraft plot</span> Foiled terrorist plot in the United Kingdom

The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives, carried aboard airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada, disguised as soft drinks. The plot was discovered by British Metropolitan police during an extensive surveillance operation. As a result of the plot, unprecedented security measures were initially implemented at airports. The measures were gradually relaxed during the following weeks, but passengers are still not allowed to carry liquid containers larger than 100 ml onto commercial aircraft in their hand luggage in the UK and most other countries, as of 2023.

The 2010 Portland car bomb plot involved an incident in which Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American student, was arrested in an FBI sting operation on November 26, 2010, after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. An attorney for Mohamud argued that his client was entrapped. On January 31, 2013, a jury found Mohamud guilty of the single charge against him. He was scheduled to be sentenced on December 18, 2013, however the sentencing was cancelled in anticipation of the filing of new motions by the defense. In September 2014, Mohamud was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison with credit for time served, as well as lifetime supervision upon release in 2040.

References

  1. 1 2 BBC News UK – Bombings police search seized car
  2. 1 2 BBC News UK – London bomb suspect Omar charged
  3. BBC News UK – Tube bomb suspect held by police
  4. BBC News UK – Police play down Taser blast risk
  5. BBC News UK – Five deny July bomb plot charges
  6. BBC News 21 July Bombings Trial Portal
  7. BBC News UK – Woman in court over July 'plot'
  8. "21 July plotter's fiancee jailed". 11 July 2008. Retrieved 11 March 2021.
  9. BBC NEWS | UK | Four guilty over 21/7 bomb plot
  10. BBC NEWS | UK | Four 21/7 bomb plotters get life
  11. Siddique, Haroon (23 April 2008). "July 21 bomb plotters lose appeal 23 April 2008". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 December 2016.
  12. "July 21 failed London bombers lose appeal 16 December 2014". The Telegraph. 16 December 2014. Retrieved 31 December 2016.