Algerian man guilty in UK ricin plot
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British courts have convicted an Algerian man -- who prosecutors said was an al Qaeda-trained terrorist -- in a plot to use the deadly ricin poison in London.
Kamel Bourgass was also convicted for the killing of a British policeman who attempted to arrest him, the Crown Prosecution Service announced on Wednesday.
In a written statement, the CPS said Bourgass was convicted last Friday of attempting to hatch a plot using ricin, a deadly poison.
An informant told police Bourgass planned to smear the deadly poison on door knobs and car handles in London.
Earlier, in a separate trial in June 2004, Bourgass was convicted of the murder of policeman Stephen Oake, the attempted murder of two of Oake's colleagues, and the wounding of a third officer.
The killing of Oake occurred during the arrest of Bourgass and others in a flat in Manchester in January 2003.
Prosecutors said evidence found in Bourgass' north London apartment included recipes for poisons identical to those being disseminated by the al Qaeda terrorist network.
In addition, they said, officers found complex circuitry as well as instructions, written by Bourgass, of how to make bombs and detonators.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Bourgass had been trained in al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
At the time of Bourgass' arrest, British officials had alleged that he was part of an al Qaeda cell, but later, prosecutors failed to win convictions against a group of Algerians with whom Bourgass had been living.
Ricin is 6,000 times more deadly than cyanide.
Police said they had found more than 20 castor oil beans -- the raw material for ricin -- as well as apple seeds and cherry stones -- which can be used to make a cyanide -- and a series of recipes for the manufacture of ricin and cyanide.
They also found recipes for the manufacture of botulinum, nicotine poison and rotten meat poison.
