Terror trial pair to be sentenced

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Two men cleared of helping to plan the 7/7 London suicide attacks are to be sentenced later for conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp.

Waheed Ali, 25 and Mohammed Shakil, 32, both from Leeds, admitted knowing the bombers - but denied helping them.

Ali and Shakil were found guilty of a second charge of plotting to go to a training camp in Pakistan, after being arrested in 2007 at Manchester Airport.

A third man, 28-year-old Sadeer Saleem, was acquitted of all charges.

The men were originally tried in 2008, but the first jury failed to reach verdicts against them.

The three are the only people to face any charges in relation to the 7/7 London bombings.

Sadeer Saleem's solicitor Imran Khan reads out a statement after the acquittal

Relatives of those who died in the bombings have called for a public inquiry into the bombings.

Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed in the Edgware Road Tube explosion, said he had been asking for an inquiry for almost four years.

He said: "We are not looking for people to blame, but we also know that we have not been told the whole truth.

"We believe that crucial lessons need to be learned. If mistakes have been made, they should be put right, not covered up. This is not a witch-hunt, it is simply about saving lives."

Following his acquittal, Sadeer Saleem's solicitor Imran Khan read out a statement on his behalf, in which Mr Saleem supported the families' calls for an inquiry.

"I must make it absolutely clear that I had nothing whatsoever to do with the dreadful attacks on 7 July 2005, which I have always condemned," he said.

Ideologically opposed

During the three-month retrial, the jury heard that the trio, all close friends of the bombers, had been key members of a tight circle around ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan.

All three, the jury was told, shared a violent jihadist ideology.

Prosecutors in both trials had claimed that the men's movements in London mirrored a scouting trip by the bombers and included sites ultimately attacked.

7/7 Investigation in numbers 90,000 phone calls examined4,700 phone numbers probed13,000 exhibits7,000 forensically examined18,450 statements taken19,400 documents created <a class="" href="/1/hi/uk/7506375.stm">In Pictures: 7/7 investigation</a>

But the trio maintained throughout the trial - and during tense evidence from the witness box - that they ideologically opposed suicide bombings and had been shocked by the attacks.

Counsel for the men told the jury there was no evidence linking them to the bombings and that they were being tried for guilt by association.

The prosecution said the group's movements bore a "striking similarity" to the final targets.

But the men told the jury that the trip had been organised because Waheed Ali was planning to leave the country for militant training in Pakistan.

He was going to join the future bombers Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, who had already left.

He wanted to say goodbye to his sister, who lived in the capital. The others, the court heard, had simply gone along for the ride.

The three men acquitted were arrested in 2007 amid the largest criminal investigation yet in the UK. But the 2008 trial reached a stalemate after almost three weeks of deliberations by the first jury.

'Very supportive'

Tens of thousands of police hours have been spent on the four-year investigation - and detectives maintain there are people in the Leeds area who know more that could help them.

The defendants accused the police and media of creating a climate of fear in the Beeston area of Leeds, where they live.

West Yorkshire Police assistant chief constable John Parkinson said "intensive scrutiny" from police, public and media had put pressure on the residents of Beeston, and also Dewsbury, where some of the 7/7 bombers lived.

He added: "Local people were very supportive of the investigation, both immediately after the event and in the many months that followed.

"The attacks on 7/7 have shown us that we all need to work together if we are to effectively respond to the threat of terrorism."

Deputy assistant commissioner John McDowall, head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, called for anyone with information about the attacks to come forward.

"While those directly responsible for the bombings died in the attacks, we remain convinced that others must have been involved in the planning," he said.