"Terrorist Working at Heathrow"

Monday, March 22, 2004

TERRORIST WORKING AT HEATHROW
United Kingdom - The Daily Express


SECURITY at Heathrow is today exposed as a shambles as the Daily Express
reveals how a convicted terrorist is working at Terminal Five.

Ulster Loyalist fanatic William McArthur, who was jailed for taking part in
a plot to smuggle guns to paramilitary killers, works for Laing O'Rourke,
the Irish firm building the airport's new GBP2billion passenger terminal.

Astonishingly, airport operators BAA admitted last night that it has not
carried out criminal record checks on McArthur or any of the thousands of
other construction staff at the terminal.

The revelation came just days after the country's most senior police
officer, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, warned that an
attack by extremists on Britain was "inevitable". While there is no evidence
that McArthur currently poses a security risk, the complete lack of checks
immediately drew condemnation from MPs and consumer groups, who expressed
incredulity.

Patrick Mercer, Conservative Shadow Minister for Homelands Security, said:
"The fact that Mr McArthur is working at T5 shows two things.

"Firstly, that it's possible for someone with a terrorist background to get
into this sort of job and, secondly, how imperfect the screening system is.
"There is no doubt that the September 11 hijackers were supported by
terrorists working as ground staff.

"We have got to be incredibly vigilant."

A terrorism expert, Magnus Ransthorpe, of St Andrews University, said the
risk of an attack at the airport was as high as it had been at almost any
time in its history. He said: "You only have to look at the way in which
British Airways has had to ground several US-bound flights to see how
worried the authorities are.

"In my view, staff need to be more alert there than ever. As part of that,
an adequate screening process for people working in areas such as T5 is
vital."

Martin Salter, the Labour MP for Reading East and a former Heathrow shop
steward, said:

"Although a convicted UVF terrorist is not in quite the same bracket as an
Al Qaeda operative, the fact remains that terrorist technology has advanced
to the stage that a device could easily be put in or underneath a building.

"It could be timed so that it does not go off until the project is finished
and innocent travellers become the victims.

"I see no reason why workers at T5 should not undergo the same sort of
criminal record checks that workers do elsewhere in the airport,
particularly with the sort of target we all know Heathrow presents."

John Stewart, chairman of Clearskies, the residents' action group, said: "I
find it a staggering admission to say that workers at Terminal Five do not
have to be checked for a terrorist background. What on earth is going on?"

Six months ago, an undercover reporter from the Express used fake references
to get a job as a baggage handler at Heathrow.

He was required to pay GBP13.50 to Disclosure Scotland, a government body,
so that it could provide him with a certificate showing that he had no
criminal convictions.

Why BAA is not applying the same policy with regards to workers at T5,
particularly when the cost is met by the employees, remained a mystery last
night.

Heathrow has already suffered the embarrassment of employing staff with
links to the sort of terrorist groups which would see the airport as an
extremely desirable target.

Only last year it was revealed that a British-born suicide bomber, Asif
Hanif, worked part-time at Alpha Retail, a company specialising in airport
shopping outlets, in Terminal Three.

Hanif, from Hounslow, blew himself up in a Tel Aviv restaurant last summer,
killing a waitress and two musicians.

BAA, which controls Heathrow and all other major British airports, later
insisted he did not have access to any of its more vulnerable "airside"
areas.

Yesterday it also emerged that a British Muslim linked to the group
suspected of terrorist atrocities in Casablanca and Madrid worked at the
airport as well.

Abdulatif Merroun, 42, jailed last year over his connections to Al Qaeda
through the Moroccan extremist group Salifia Jihadia, was employed by a
Canadian airline in 1998.

So the revelation about McArthur landing a job at T5 means he is following
in the footsteps of two other employees at the world's busiest airport who
later went on to become terrorists. A BAA spokeswoman claimed that McArthur
did not need to undergo a criminal or terrorist record check because T5 is
not as "vulnerable" as other parts of Heathrow.

She said: "Terminal Five is a contained construction site, not a restricted
security area.

"Construction employees on the Terminal Five site do not have access to
restricted areas. Anyone working in restricted security areas is required to
have a criminal record check, unlike the majority of the building sites.

"Terminal Five does, however, require constructors to undertake employment
record checks. We will investigate this to see what action is required."

McArthur, 49, from Falkirk, was only released from Shotts Prison in
Strathclyde in 2000. He was sentenced to eight years for conspiring to
supply guns to one of the most savage factions of the outlawed Ulster
Volunteer Force.

Despite this, McArthur is employed as a steel erector for Laing O'Rourke,
which is one of the country's biggest building firms and which was widely
praised last year for agreeing to pay T5 construction workers up to
GBP52,000 a year.


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