The puzzle that is Minh Quang Pham

[jmm99]

from David:
So why did he travel to Yemen, one of those places that sets off alarm bells?

that is, personal interviews by folks who can't travel easily from Yemen - and are not that safe there.

Regards

Mike

[davidbfpo]

This case remains a puzzle, but maybe coming to an end:

A Vietnamese man pleaded guilty Friday in New York to supporting Al-Qaeda in Yemen, where he learned to build a bomb earmarked to blow up London's Heathrow airport.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...aeda-link.html

It appears that Pham was extradited to the USA in March 2015, after a protracted legal case over his UK citizenship being revoked by the Home Secretary

...after being charged with travelling to Yemen to receive training at an Al-Qaeda camp.

Link:https://www.thebureauinvestigates.co...s-in-new-york/

Why he was not charged here eludes me as evidence was found upon his arrival @ London Heathrow in July 2011:

A search of his belongings discovered electronic files setting out his links to AQAP as well as a live round of armor-piercing ammunition capable of being used in a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...r-charges.html

[davidbfpo]

Via a reporter in Jerusalem a report on Pham's pre-sentencing statement in court @ New York; which starts with:

A British member of al-Qaeda has claimed he only agreed to carry out a suicide bombing at Heathrow as a way of escaping from a terror training camp in Yemen where he was suffering from scabies. Minh Quang Pham, a British citizen born in Vietnam, spent six months in Yemen in 2011 training with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the deadliest branches of the terror network.....Ahead of his sentencing Pham wrote his US judge a 13-page handwritten letter in which he said he was "very naive" when he joined the terror group and insisted he had no intention of actually carrying out the Heathrow attack.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...he-could-esca/