A South Asian who was formerly a British Airways software engineer has been jailed for 30 years for plotting to blow up a plane

Rajib Karim, 31, used his job to access information for an al-Qaeda preacher based in Yemen to target BA's flights in the United States. Sentencing him at Woolwich Crown Court, Justice Calvert-Smith said he was a committed jihadist who planned offenses about as grave as could be imagined. The judge said he had worked incessantly for terrorist purposes. Karim, a Bangladeshi who had sought a British passport, had kept his true intentions secret from colleagues at BA, Justice Calvert-Smith added. He said Karim was a willing follower who could have brought serious harm and death to civilians had his planning with others come to anything. Karim, who had a British wife and a child, was told he faced deportation after he had completed his sentence. The court had heard Karim hid his hatred for the West from colleagues by joining a gym, playing football and never airing extreme views. At the same time he was using his access to the airline's offices in Newcastle upon Tyne and at London's Heathrow airport to pass on sensitive information.