London: An Indian doctor arrested the same day his brother allegedly drove a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas bombs into Glasgow's main airport was charged Saturday with a terrorism offense. A distant cousin in Australia was also charged in the failed attacks in London and Glasgow.
Sabeel Ahmed, of Liverpool, was charged with having information that could prevent an act of terrorism, the Metropolitan Police said in a news release.
Sabeel is the third person to be charged in connection with the alleged plot in London and Glasgow. His brother, Kafeel, is believed to have set himself on fire after crashing into the airport and is in a Scottish hospital with critical burns.
Mohammad Haneef, 27, a distant cousin who once shared a house with the brothers in Britain, was charged Saturday in Brisbane, Australia, with supporting a terrorist group. Bilal Abdullah, a 27-year-old Iraqi doctor, was charged last week by British police with conspiring to set off explosions.
Australian police charged Haneef with providing support to the bomb plot by giving his SIM card to Sabeel and Kafeel Ahmed when he left Britain for Australia in July 2006. Haneef faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.
British police tracked a SIM card found on one of the men accused in the failed bomb attacks to Haneef, and alerted their Australian counterparts. Haneef was arrested July 2 while trying to leave the eastern city of Brisbane for India on a one-way ticket.
Prosecutor Clive Porritt said Haneef would have known about the Ahmed brothers' alleged links to terrorism.
''These are people who he lived with, may have worked with, and certainly associated with,'' Porritt told the Brisbane Magistrates Court during a daylong bail hearing.
But defence lawyer Stephen Keim said Haneef only left the SIM card with Sabeel so his cousin could take advantage of a special deal on his mobile phone plan.
''For some reason he should have been aware that something was going to happen when the rest of the world didn't,'' Keim said. ''It is not suggested that he is anything other than a foolish dupe who should have been more suspicious.''
Eight people were detained immediately after the botched attacks; one of them, the only woman, was freed on Thursday.
It was not immediately clear whether the SIM card was used in the foiled attacks.
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