NEW YORK: A terror suspect from Britain has pleaded guilty in a New York court to charges of plotting to set up a terrorist training camp in the US with the help of another suspect.

Paranoid schizophrenic Haroon Aswat admitted supporting terrorism and conspiracy and could face up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Aswat and his associate Abu Hamza conspired to create a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon, 15 years ago. Hamza, 56, previously of north London, was jailed for life in January after a jury last year found him guilty of supporting terrorist organisations. Aswat, who is thought to be 40, was arrested in 2005 in Zambia and later flown to the UK.

Aswat was accused of being sent by Hamza to the US in 1999 to set up the camp in the remote hamlet of Bly to train extremists to fight in Afghanistan.Prosecutors said he spent two months living at a mosque in Seattle.

They also said Aswat’s name was in a ledger recovered by FBI agents from a safe house in Pakistan, used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which listed people associated with Al Qaeda.

Hamza was jailed for life in New York in January after being convicted of charges including the Oregon training camp plot.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015

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