Saturday, October 11, 2008

John Smeaton rushed to hospital after suffering serious asthma attack
Glasgow Airport car bomb hero John Smeaton is fighting for his life a day after the two men accused over the attack went on trial.
Sources said the 32-year-old was rushed from his home in Paisley, Renfrewshire, to hospital after suffering a serious asthma attack on Thursday night. He is now understood to be in intensive care at the Royal Alexandra Hospital where he is in a serious but stable condition.
The former baggage handler has regularly written about his poor health in a national newspaper column.
A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde confirmed: "I can confirm that he is in the Royal Alexandra Hospital and that his condition is stable."
Sources said a similar asthma attack a decade ago almost killed him.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Mohammed Asha, 28, went on trial at Woolwich Crown Court, south-east London, on Thursday, accused of attempting to murder hundreds of people with car bombs in London and Glasgow.
Abdulla wrote he was planning to kill in revenge for injustices against Muslims by British and American soldiers, the court was told on Friday.
The also heard he left a will addressed to Osama bin Laden. A draft of the will was found on a badly-burned laptop in the remains of a Jeep Cherokee that ploughed into the airport's main terminal building. The computer also contained videos of attacks on coalition forces in Iraq, coffins of American soldiers and clips of speeches by Osama bin Laden.
Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said Abdulla wrote the document because he expected to die in the attack alongside a second man, Kafeel Ahmed, 28. He said: "This document is addressed to, amongst others, the leaders of jihad in Iraq to bin Laden and to the brothers or soldiers of jihad in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Palestine and other areas of the world.
"The terms in which it is written, we submit, expose that the defendant's position in his trial before you is a lie. The attacks he was planning were intended to kill. They were in revenge for the injustices as the defendant sees them that the British and American people and their armies visit on the Muslim communities