UK citizen 'who planned to blow up Heathrow airport' gets 40 years in US jail for supporting Al-Qaeda

Former McDonald's worker Ming Quang Pham, from South London, plotted to set off a suicide bomb packed with metal bolts in the airport's arrivals hall

A UK citizen who 'planned to blow up Heathrow airport' has been jailed for 40 years in the US for supporting Al-Qaeda.

Ming Quang Pham, aka Amin, had pleaded guilty to three counts of terrorist related activity.

Born in Vietnam, he used to live in New Cross and worked in a London branch of McDonald's - but intended to commit a massacre in his home city.

He is believed to have been personally trained by an Al Qaeda leader to carry out a devastating suicide attack and bomb Heathrow Airport , US court papers claimed.

They claim Pham, 33, was instructed to wear a backpack containing the bomb and target passengers arriving from America and Israel in an arrivals hall.

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He was reportedly told by Al Qaeda chief Anwar al-Awlaki, who trained him, to place metal bolts around the bomb to cause as many casualties as possible.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command in London confirmed tonight they have been liaising with their counterparts in New York over the case.

The unit said it provided key evidence that helped "shape the case" against Pham which "led to this successful prosecution".

Pham had been supporting AQAP - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - which is a designated foreign terrorist organisation.

He pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to AQAP, one count of conspiring to receive military training from AQAP and one count of possessing and using a machine gun in furtherance of crimes of violence.

Pham was first arrested in the UK on June 29, 2012, and subsequently extradited to the US on February 26 last year.

Details of the alleged plan to blow up Heathrow Airport emerged in FBI interviews with Pham.

One FBI transcript of an interview with Pham reads: “Pham approached Awlaki and offered to conduct a suicide attack and ‘sacrifice himself’ on behalf of Al Qaeda upon his return to the United Kingdom.”

The transcript added that Awlaki gave Pham nearly £5,000 in expenses ahead of the attack.

It added: “Pham planned on using the money to rent a house in the UK to construct the explosive device and to purchase the chemicals and other materials needed for the attack."

Al-Awlaki was later killed following a drone strike by the US military in Yemen in September 2011.

Pham has denied that he would carry out the Heathrow bombing.

He claims his statements of violence were a ruse so he could leave Yemen and return to his family in London.