NYC subway (illustrative)
NYC subway (illustrative)Reuters

Police in Britain have extradited a terror suspect to the United States to face charges that he took part in an alleged Al Qaeda plot to detonate explosives aboard the New York City subway system.

Abid Naseer, 26, who was arrested in 2009 along with 11 other mainly-Pakistani nationals, will stand trial in the United States for his alleged role in a terror campaign that would have also attacked targets in Britain and Norway.

U.S. prosecutors told a British court hearing his extradition case two years ago that they plan to prove that Naseer collected bomb ingredients, conducted reconnaissance and communicated with Al Qaeda operatives.

The judge concluded that Naseer was "an al-Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the United Kingdom" but that he could not be deported to Pakistan because there was a risk he would be tortured by Pakistani intelligence services, the BBC reported.

In July 2010 the FBI announced it wanted to try him in New York, alleging that he was part of an international terror plot which included a thwarted suicide attack on the New York subway system.