February 05, 2008	Tuesday	Muharram 26, 1429

LONDON, Feb 4: Five men who helped the bombers in the aftermath of the failed London attacks on July 21, 2005, have been found guilty of terror charges.

Kingston Crown Court heard that they had provided the plotters with safe houses, passports, clothing and food.

According to the Guardian on Monday, the group assisted the gang in evading immediate detection by providing safe houses and passports as well as clothing and food as they hid from police.

Siraj Ali, 33, Muhedin Ali, 29, Ismail Abdurahman, 25, Wahbi Mohammed, 25, and Abdul Sherif, 30, were convicted of a total of 22 charges for failing to disclose information about terrorism and assisting an offender, following a four-month trial at Kingston crown court.Siraj Ali and Wahbi Mohammed were also convicted of having prior knowledge of the plot to explode devices on the London transport network.

All five defendants were originally from Africa but had been living in London for some years. Max Hill, prosecuting, said they all “lent active assistance” to the would-be bombers and failed to report what they knew to police as required by law.

It was alleged that all, apart from Abdurahman, knew beforehand of the July 21 plot but did not inform the authorities. Hill said that behaviour of Sherif -- a brother of failed bomber Hussain Osman -- “demonstrated sympathy towards and knowledge of the planned attacks”.

The court heard that Wahbi Mohammed, the brother of would-be Oval underground station bomber Ramzi Mohammed, was present as the final preparations were made on the morning of July 21.

The court heard Siraj Ali lived in a 10th floor flat in Curtis House, north London, above where Warren Street bomber Yassin Omar lived.

A ripped-up list of bomb parts was found in his bin. On a desk was a notepad linked to Ibrahim containing an Arabic script titled: “Steps to Martyrdom”.