Initially, U.K. and U.S. officials suggested that both Rauf brothers were significant participants in the plot. Last week, however, officials said that Tayib was only a “van driver” who might have been ignorant of the plot. Tayib, the two U.K. counterterrorism officials said, was released because British prosecutors believed police had insufficient evidence to convict him on criminal charges.
The officials indicated, however, that Tayib was still likely to be closely monitored by British intelligence. Rauf family friend Mohammed Nazam told NEWSWEEK: “Tayib’s here in Birmingham and he’s OK … But he needs a few days.” Meanwhile, Pakistani authorities have detained the Rauf brothers’ father, Abdul Rauf, and U.K. authorities have frozen the funds of Crescent Relief, a U.K. charity that Abdul Rauf helped to found. The family friend says Tayib and Abdul Rauf told him by phone that they were “totally innocent.”
British authorities did charge 12 other suspects with offenses related to the alleged airline plot last week, and announced that bomb-making equipment and “martyrdom videos” had been found by police. But according to a U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked for anonymity due to the sensitive subject, investigators remain concerned not only that participants in the plot could still be at large, but also about the possible existence of a “parallel” plot carried out by a second, unidentified group of conspirators.
The release of Tayib Rauf has raised questions about whether U.K. authorities have stumbled in yet another high-profile terror investigation. Last year, in the wake of the fatal suicide bombings of three London subway trains and a double-decker bus, police shot dead a suicide bombing suspect only to discover he was an innocent Brazilian. Earlier this summer, police shot and injured another suspect during a raid while searching for an alleged homemade chemical weapon. No weapon, or any other evidence of terrorism, was found, though the suspect who police shot was later arrested for possession of child pornography.
