Between 1999 and 2000, Akbar worked at Gatwick airport, first in the Dixons air-side branch, then at a newsagents. He later worked at First Choice and Next, also air-side.

In September 2001 he enrolled on a four-year MSc in multimedia, technology and design at Brunel University. When police raided his family home in Crawley they found The Mujahideen Explosive Handbook, which contained a recipe for making a fertiliser [sic] bomb.

Earlier this week, Akbar and four fellow British Muslims were convicted of conspiring to attack London with homemade bombs. They were sentenced to life in prison. The jihadists' targets included a nightclub packed with people and a busy shopping center. The terror cell also plotted to attack England's gas and electric grids.   

Akbar is not the first jihadist to work at an airport. Convicted Al Qaeda terrorist Dhieren Barot worked at Heathrow Airport from 1991-1995 and one of the cell members of the August 2006 London Planes Plot worked at Heathrow Airport with an all-area access pass. Heathrow Airport, located in London, is the busiest international airport in the world.

As I wrote in an earlier post for The Aviation Nation, "German Terror Cell Approached Airport Workers," American airports are not immune from having terrorists as employees. FBI Special Agent Thomas Powers recently confirmed that in 1996, a baggage handler at Logan Airport in Boston was a known member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah. But also according to Powers, the baggage handler was legally in the country at the time and because of this, there was no official reason to arrest him — this was before 9/11.