The guardian
Justice on trial
London bomb plotters launch appeal over ‘flawed’ forensic evidence
Four convicted over 21 July 2005 plot claim evidence that bombs were intended to cause carnage was unreliable
Four of the terrorists convicted for the 21 July 2005 bomb plot will launch an attempt to have their sentences quashed following claims by a former senior government scientist that key forensic evidence used to jail the attackers was flawed.
Evidence from Sean Doyle, the former principal scientist at the Ministry of Defence’s Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL) who was involved in the investigation into the explosive devices, is set to be submitted to the court of appeal and the Criminal Cases Review Commission by lawyers for Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Oma and Ramzi Mohammed. They were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison in July 2007 for trying to cause carnage on the London transport system.
Their failed attack came two weeks after four suicide bombers murdered 52 people on London’s transport network on 7 July 2005. Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, who pleaded guilty on the lesser charge of conspiracy to cause an explosion, is also seeking to have his conviction overturned.
Doyle alleges that scientific evidence submitted in the original trial that the bombs were intended to cause carnage was unreliable. Lawyers for the men claim that concerns about that evidence should have been disclosed to the court as it went to the heart of the prosecution case. Failure to do so was an abuse of process that should have caused the proceedings against the defendants to be stayed, they say.
The bombs failed to detonate properly and the terrorists’ defence was that the chapati flour and bleach in their rucksack explosives were deliberately mixed to ensure there was no harm caused. They said the attack was “an elaborate hoax designed to protest against and draw attention to Britain’s role in the attack upon and occupation of Iraq”.
In the trial the court saw video of violent explosions after government scientists tried to recreate the bombs. The jury was also told Mohammed had left what the prosecution said was a suicide note talking about how Allah grants martyrdom. The jury was unconvinced by the defendants’ claims of a hoax, and along with Hussian Osman, they were jailed for the attempted attacks on three underground trains at Shepherd’s Bush, Oval and Warren Street, and on a bus in Hackney Road. An earlier appeal against conviction in 2008 by Ibrahim, Mohammed and Omar failed when a judge ruled the crimes were “merciless and extreme” and the sentences should stand.
Lawyers for the bombers have now claimed concerns raised by Doyle and other scientists at the FEL over the standard of evidence about the make-up of the bomb mixture – and therefore the veracity of the bombers’ claim that they were deliberately constructed to fail – was withheld from the court.
Doyle said he raised his concerns about the evidence before the trial with the Metropolitan police’s counterterrorism command liaison officer. He told them of his worry ‘that the methodology …and the interpretation of the results may not be reliable”. He said he did this in order that his concerns would be passed on by the officer whose duty it was to liaise with the Crown Prosecution Service.
“It is imperative that we establish how the concerns of Mr Doyle and other scientists at FEL came to be ignored and hidden.” Said Tayab Ali, partner at ITN Solicitors, who represents the appellants.
“The central issue in the 21 July trial was the viability of the devices. To learn that both crucial evidence about the methods used to test the devices and the serious concerns of a senior scientist were hidden from the jury is extremely disturbing.”
In his statement Doyle, who left the FEL in 2010 and now lives in New Zealand, says that during the trial he was “privy to prosecution evidence relating to explosive”. He said he was particularly concerned about the application, presented at trial, of forensic technique know as isotope radio mass spectrometry that was used to analyse the bomb mixture.
He said that he and other scientists harboured considerable doubts as to the suitability of the methods used, the validity of the results obtained and the interpretation of those result.
In a witness statement that is being submitted as part of a 222-page dossier, Doyle raised concerns about the scientific and mathematical soundness of a curved graph produced relating to the mix of bomb ingredients, and the reliability of evidence given to court about the dilution of hydrogen peroxide-issues central to whether the bombs were mixed not to explode.
He said he was worried that one scientist who provided evidence relating to the techniques of isotope radio mass spectrometry did not have the correct expertise for analysing the chemical elements in the bombs and questioned whether the methods met with standards for analytical methods used to generate data for forensic purposes as set out in the International Laboratory Accreditation Co-operation guidelines.
His concern about the analysis of the explosives used caused him to ask two members of his team to examine it in detail. Their findings were prepared for submission to a senior scientist in the FEL in accordance with internal procedures for dealing with reports of potential miscarriages of justice, Doyle said.
It will be up to the court of appear and the Criminal Cases Review Commission whether to grant convicted bombers leave to challenge their conviction.