More clowns on trial

Why is it that no one ever looks good in their mugshot? These three sweethearts— Abdullah Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar, and Tanvir Hussain— were convicted in a London courtroom of conspiracy to commit murder in a plot centered on blowing up trans-Atlantic airliners. Yet somehow they were not convicted of the plot itself, nor were four of their co-defendants. "The eight were acquitted of the charge of conspiring with several other suspects to murder persons unknown by the detonation of improvised explosive devices on board transatlantic passenger aircraft... A crucial role in the plot seemed to have been played by Mohammed Gulzar, 26, the only defendant to be found not guilty on all charges on Monday and set free... The jury’s failure to reach verdicts on the plane-bombing charges, and other charges against four of the eight defendants, left open the possibility of another trial if Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service decides that it might win convictions at a retrial. The judge set a deadline of 26 December for a decision. Given the scope of the plot charges, the strong interest in the case of the American authorities, and the belief among officials on both sides of the Atlantic that the defendants were part of a Qaeda conspiracy, a retrial seemed to be a strong possibility... Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006, setting off a chain of events that led British police to roll up the London-based cell earlier than they had wanted. The haste in making sweeping arrests in the plane-bombing trial, including that of Mr. Gulzar, appears to have been one reason why the prosecutors, in court, presented a case that failed to persuade the jury that the bomb plot had reached the stage where an actual attack on airliners was imminent... Last December, to the frustration of British authorities, Mr. Rauf escaped from the Pakistani police by ducking into a mosque to pray following a hearing for his extradition."

Rico says he's confused...