ARBID: RETRIAL FOR ACCUSED BOMB HOAXER
A woman accused of framing her ex-boyfriend’s new wife as a bomber after she discovered their relationship will face a re-trial after a jury failed to reach a verdict.
Ahla Arbid, 33, told airport authorities that former-BBC journalist Hossain Ansari Pour was part of a plot to kill hundreds on an international flight, it was said during her trial.
She claimed explosives were being smuggled from Iran via Turkey by his new bride Sara Aryan Pour.
Arbid made the hoax bomb threat to get back at Mr Hossain Pour after she learned of his arranged marriage to Ms Aryan Pour, prosecutors told a jury at Southwark Crown Court.
The bogus warning sparked a major security alert and Ms Aryan Pour was hauled off her plane as it waited on the Tarmac in Istanbul and searched, they said, though no explosives were ever found,
Arbid, who admitted sending the emails to airport authorities and contested she had genuine fears, was told she would face a re-trail next March after the jury were unable to reach a verdict following close to five hours of deliberation.
During her trial the jurors heard that Arbid and Mr Hossain Pour, who now works for Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones newswire, had met on an Islamic dating website and entered into a ‘temporary marriage’ in early 2010.
Mr Ansari Pour said he had already been married twice, once in a ‘full’ Islamic marriage, from which he has an 11-year-old daughter, and also in a previous “temporary” marriage, which under Iranian law allows legal sexual relationships on a less formal basis than full marriage.
He said that when he started seeing Arbid, he told her that his parents were looking for a wife for him in a traditional arranged marriage.
He said: ‘Even on the first day that I met Ahla, I did tell her my parents were looking for a wife for me.’
The court heard that the couple entered into a sexual relationship, and that Arbid later told the journalist she was pregnant by him, subsequently having an abortion.
Mr Ansari Pour’s parents found him a bride in Iran, and although he was still engaged in his ‘temporary marriage’ to Arbid, he flew to his homeland for a religious wedding ceremony.
He then arranged for his new wife, Sara Aryan Pour, to come to Britain, booking her a flight to London via Turkey on 2 May this year.
Arbid discovered what was happening, and contacted both the British Airports Authority and the authorities in Turkey to tell them that Miss Aryan Pour was carrying an ‘explosive substance’ to give to her husband in London.
Giving evidence Arbid denied that she had made the bomb threat to hit back at Mr Ansari Pour.
She told jurors she grew suspicious of him after she overheard him say in a series of phone conversations the ‘flight will fall’ and talk of ‘documents’, which she believed was a coded reference for explosive materials.
Arbid said she believed Miss Aryan Pour was going to meet a man by the name of Suleman Mohammed at Ataturk Istanbul airport to exchange the bomb parts.
She said: ‘I thought maybe they were planning for something; that he would meet her and they would do bomb building to make the flight fall.’
She claimed Hossain held ‘extreme’ views on religion and politics and felt duty bound to report her suspicions.
Arbid, of (Flat 36) Bilton Towers, Great Cumberland Place, Marylebone, west London, denies communicating false information with intent.
ENDS
