Kamel Bourgass, who is expected to spend at least 30 years in prison for the ricin conspiracy and the murder of Detective Constable Stephen Oake, was part of a worldwide cell headed by the notorious Abu Doha.

Bourgass was just one of the fanatics recruited, inspired and guided by Doha, 39, who is also known as Dr Haider, the Doctor, Rachid, Amar Makhlulif and Didier Ajuelos.

Others included Ahmed Ressam, jailed in the United States over a planned millennium bomb attack on Los Angeles airport, and Nizar Trabelsi, in prison in Belgium for plotting to blow up a Nato airbase.

Those in the front line against terrorism are reluctant to claim that the Abu Doha network has been wound up.

“It would be foolhardy to say it was finished,” a senior anti-terrorist officer said. “The Abu Doha network is very resilient and our experience shows that these networks do change and can mutate very quickly.”

But the thwarting of the ricin plot was a major success and since then the bulk of terror threats in Britain have come from different cells, often of Asian or domestic origin.

Doha was a member of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), a terrorist group which has carried out widespread atrocities in Algeria. In 1998, according to a US indictment, he won permission from Osama bin Laden to set up the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan for Algerians and other North Africans.

Hundreds trained at Khalden and some who have since been arrested have testified that bin Laden visited regularly. Many left to fight alongside Islamists in Chechnya, but others were encouraged to base themselves in the West and carry out attacks there.

With his camp established, Doha stationed himself in North London amid the growing Algerian population fleeing the bitter conflict in their homeland. The Finsbury Park mosque was a focal point for the community.

Authorising the detention of one of his associates, a judge described Doha as “a senior terrorist”.

Mr Justice Ouseley said: “In Afghanistan, he had held a senior position in training camps organising the passage of Mujahidin volunteers to and from those camps.

“He had a wide range of extremist Islamic contacts inside and outside the United Kingdom, including links to individuals involved in terrorist operations,” he said. “He was involved in a number of extremist agendas.

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