London: Bangalore-born Kafeel Ahmed, 27, who suffered third degree burns over 90 per cent of his body when he set himself on fire following an attempt to ram a Jeep into Glasgow's Airport, is unlikely to live, doctors attending on him said.
"Statistically, he is not likely to live," said Dr Joseph Feldman, chairman of emergency medicine at Hackensack University Medical Centre in New Jersey, who is not connected to Ahmed's treatment.
Kafeel is heavily sedated and likely to suffer organ failure, a member of his medical team said. The doctor, who demanded anonymity because he is not authorised to discuss the suspect's condition, said severe burns have left the suspect vulnerable to infection.
This also means that the investigators probing the failed bomb attacks in Britain will not be able to question or charge the Indian-born aeronautical engineer in the foreseeable future.
Another doctor unconnected to the case, however, said Kafeel could potentially respond to police questioning if he regains consciousness, depending on the severity of his condition.
"If he's not on a breathing machine, he should be able to communicate," said Dr. Richard Kagan, director of the Burn Center at the Shriner's University Hospital in Cincinnati. "But whether or not he's clear-minded enough to talk to the police is another question."
While Kafeel — believed to be at the centre of the plot — lies under police guard at a Glasgow hospital's burn unit, officials are unpicking a web of relationships that spin out from the silent suspect.
Prosecutors say Ahmed is suspected of crashing a Jeep Cherokee loaded with gas canisters and gasoline into Glasgow Airport on June 30 - a day after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London.
His alleged accomplice in the Jeep, Bilal Abdullah, is a 27-year-old doctor born in Britain and raised in Iraq. They are alleged to have carried out attempted bombings in London before returning to Scotland - where Abdullah worked at a Glasgow-area hospital - and attacking the airport.
Abdullah is so far the only person charged among eight suspects detained over the failed attacks, accused by prosecutors of conspiring to set off explosions. British authorities froze Abdullah's assets.
The Bank of England, in making the freeze public Wednesday, also revealed that Bilal Abdullah has had a British passport for at least nine years.
Sabeel Ahmed, 26, brother of the man who was burned, was arrested in Liverpool and is being questioned by London police. Investigators suspect that Kafeel Ahmed introduced his brother to Mohammed Asha, a neurosurgeon arrested with wife Marwa on a highway in northern England.
Security officials said they have not yet established when or where the group was radicalised, how its members met or when attack plans were drawn up.
Meanwhile, unable to question the Indian-born aeronautical engineer, investigators have probed his background, piecing together his work history and scouring phone records to pinpoint his associates and movements, a British government security official said.
"It's exactly the same approach we'd take with a suspect who refuses to respond during interviews," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his role. In some ways, it doesn't matter if he speaks or not."
"Once you can identify someone then your inquiries begin and you find out all you can from their biographical data - whether they are cooperating or not," the official said.
Police have not yet formally arrested Ahmed, partly because he is too severely burned and also because it would set in motion legal wheels that could potentially lead to his release within a month.
British law dictates that after being arrested a terror suspect can be held for a maximum of 28 days before being charged or released. "He has not been arrested," said a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with policy. "It means the 28-day clock hasn't started ticking."
It is the first time since new anti-terror laws were enacted following the September 11 attacks that British police have been faced with a terror suspect too badly injured to be questioned, the official said.
But the situation is not unprecedented. During the 1969-1997 conflict over Northern Ireland, wounded paramilitary members were kept under police guard while hospitalised.
Comments
0 comment