Car bomb accused 'is a pacifist'An NHS neurologist accused of masterminding a car bomb campaign is a dedicated pacifist, a court has heard.
Dr Mohammed Asha would not get involved in terrorism "in a million years", his barrister Stephen Kamlish QC said.
Dr Asha, 28, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, is accused of providing advice and cash for a plot to detonate car bombs at Glasgow Airport and in London.
Together with Dr Bilal Abdulla, 29, from Paisley, he denies conspiracies to murder and to cause explosions.
Dr Abdulla was the passenger in a Jeep, driven by engineering student Kafeel Ahmed, 28, which crashed into a terminal building at the airport in June last year.
The car was laden with petrol and gas canisters and Ahmed later died from burns sustained during the incident.
Opening Dr Asha's defence, Mr Kamlish said his client was a completely different man to Dr Abdulla, who has admitted trying to scare people through the attempted bombings but denies any attempts to harm.
Mr Kamlish told Woolwich Crown Court that Dr Asha was a professional, academic and peaceful man who had dedicated his life to medicine.
He said: "This is the man you are trying, he is a pacifist, he is a decent man and he is a man dedicated in an extreme way.
"There is the irony, Bilal Abdulla, an extremist, describes Mohammed Asha's dedication to medicine as extreme, and that is why he is not guilty."
Mr Kamlish described the prosecution case against his client as "pure speculation" and said there was no evidence pointing to his guilt.
Source Perhaps my definition of a pacifist is wrong, but I could have sworn it didn't including funding people who wanted to use car bombs to initimidate and terrorise people into accepting their viewpoint.
