Terror suspect Sabeel Ahmed to be deported to India

LONDON: Sabeel Ahmed, a doctor from Bangalore, was sentenced to 18 months in jail Friday after admitting he failed to inform the police about his brother's suicide bombing of Glasgow airport last year.

He will be released and deported to India almost immediately as he has already served the time while on trial.

Ahmed, 26, who worked at the National Health Service, pleaded guilty to withholding information about the suicide mission of June 30 last year, when his brother Kafeel Ahmed drove a Jeep Cherokee filled with propane canisters into the airport terminal and set it alight.

However, the burning vehicle failed to break through the glass doors and no one was injured, although Kafeel Ahmed subsequently died of burns.

A London court was told Friday that Sabeel received an email from his brother and details of his will before the attack.

The court heard that he will be released from custody and deported to India almost immediately because of the time he has already served while on trial.

Originally from Bangalore, Ahmed was arrested in Liverpool June 30 last year and later charged under the Terrorism Act, 2000.

He entered his guilty plea during a hearing at the Old Bailey in London on Friday.

Ahmed was the third person to be charged in the investigation and two other men face a trial later this year accused of conspiracy to cause explosions.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw told the court that the attack was intended to be a suicide mission after earlier attacks on the capital had failed.

"One assumes that the nature of the attack in terms of what was planned had changed because of the failed attempts in London.

"They appeared now to have been working on the basis they were likely to be arrested and the attack to be conducted at Glasgow was to be a suicide attack likely to result in the loss of both their lives," he said.

A day before the Glasgow attack, the police in London were able to prevent the car bombing of a packed nightclub that has been linked by prosecutors to the attempted airport bombing.