IT expert guilty of terror plot

A KEY figure in the al Qaeda plot to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre was convicted today in Canada.

Electronics expert Momin Khawaja, 29, a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen, had flown into Britain to pass on specialist advice to the bomb gang.

The Ottawa software developer had created a remote-control device for detonating the explosives which could have killed hundreds of innocent people. Five of the gang were jailed for life last year for planning to bomb the Kent shopping centre in 2004, but Khawaja managed to flee Britain.

Today he was convicted in Toronto on five charges of financing and facilitating terrorism in the first case of its kind in Canada.