‘Plotters had been filmed 14 months before raid on London’

The alleged 21/7 bombers were under police surveillance 14 months before they tried to carry out suicide attacks on the London transport system, a court was told yesterday.

Five of the six defendants, some of whom were followers of the radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, were photographed camping on farmland in the northern Lake District with a group of 20 men.

The group, which included children, had an apparent leader who gave instructions. Police photographed the men in prayer on the May Bank Holiday weekend in 2004. A jury trying the men at Woolwich Crown Court for conspiracy to murder and cause explosions was told that covert photographers recorded the scenes.

But the planning for 21/7 is not alleged to have begun in earnest until March 2005 when Muktar SaidIbrahim, the leader of the alleged terror cell, returned from a four-month trip to Pakistan. Mr Ibrahim’s friends were surprised to see him. He had gone abroad, they believed, to fight the jihad which he described as his “dream”. They imagined that he would never return.

But it is alleged that rather than fighting, Mr Ibrahim may have been trained overseas. Upon his return he emerged as the figure “in charge” of the group of six men accused of conspiring to commit mass murder.

The jurors were told that the young Ethiopian had become steeped in the ideology of militant Islam. He was a disciple of Abu Hamza and had often heard him preach at Finsbury Park mosque, North London. Yasin Omar and Adel Yahya, two other defendants, also went to the mosque. Mr Ibrahim had been arrested for a public order offence in Oxford Street in October 2004 when he was distributing radical Islamist literature.

Previously he had attended a jihad training camp in Sudan and learnt to fire rocket-propelled grenades. Friends frequently heard him speak of his desire to fight the jihad. Along with Mr Omar, Mr Yahya, Ramzi Mohammad and Hussain Osman, Mr Ibrahim had been among the 20 men at the camping weekend at a farm in Langdale in the northern Lakes.

Nigel Sweeney, QC, for the prosecution, told the court: “At times they were addressed by someone who appeared to be their leader and they lined up in what appeared to be Islamic prayer.” Mr Ibrahim had also been questioned by police at Heathrow, en route to Pakistan, with a first-aid kit, £3,000 and a sleeping bag in his luggage.

Witnesses have told police that some of the accused also attended training or indoctrination camps in Scotland and Kent, returning enthused about the ideas of jihad. The purpose of the trip to Scotland was described as “getting fit for jihad”. Now, it was alleged, the ideological preparations were over and the time had come for Mr Ibrahim and the others to take action.

Mr Sweeney said their plan was to become suicide bombers; there had been no thought given to what would happen if the devices failed to explode and they had been careless about leaving a trail of fingerprint, DNA and CCTV evidence. During the massive police investigation, officers would find evidence that a suicide video had been filmed and two copies of a suicide note written by Mr Mohammad. Mr Sweeney said: “This case is concerned with an extremist Muslim plot, the ultimate objective of which was to carry out a number of murderous suicide bombings on the public transport system in London. The day eventually chosen for those attacks was Thursday July 21, 2005, just 14 days after the carnage of 7/7.

“The prosecution alleges that all six defendants were parties to that plot. It is our case that the role of the first five defendants — Ibrahim, Manfo Kwaku Asiedo, Osman, Omar and Mohammad — included ultimately that of would-be suicide bomber. The role of Mr Yahya included, at the least, taking part in some of the essential preparations in furtherance of the conspiracy.” But in March, upon Mr Ibrahim’s return, there was much work to be done. The conspirators began with the laborious process of obtaining the materials to make explosives and refining the recipes for the main charge and the TATP detonators.

Equally important was maintaining the jihadi spirit. After the incidents, police recovered large amounts of extremist material from addresses used by the six alleged conspirators.

Cassette tapes of sermons by Abu Hamza and another radical preacher, Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, were found. Witnesses, Mr Sweeney said, would testify that Mr Ibrahim and others listened to the tapes frequently. Home-made video compilations were found which featured beheadings of hostages by kidnappers and footage from terrorist attacks such as 9/11.

Mr Sweeney said that the long period of indoctrination and preparation showed that the 21/7 incidents were not an attempt to copy the actions of the bombers who struck in London two weeks before.

“It is our case that the events with which this case is concerned are plainly not some hastily arranged copycat albeit that, like 7/7, one of the bombs was deployed on a bus somewhat after the others.” However, the events of a fortnight before may have accelerated the pace of the 21/7 gang’s planning. Mobile phone evidence and CCTV footage showed that five of the defendants were in frequent contact in the week leading up to July 21.

By this time, Mr Yahya had left Britain for Ethiopia and would play no part in the final preparations. Mr Sweeney said: “It appears that on the night of Wednesday 20 July, 2005, the five all met at Mohammad’s flat at Dalgarno Gardens in North Kensington. It was certainly from that flat that they all set off the following day with their bombs.

“After the 7/7 bombings, security measures (including searches) had been instituted on the public transport system in the rush hour. No doubt to avoid this the five defendants decided to attack at around lunchtime instead.

“Late in the morning of Thursday, July 21, Ibrahim, Omar and Mohammad set out from Dalgarno Gardens in Mohammad’s Fiat Punto car with their bombs. They made their way to Stockwell where the car was parked not far from the Tube station. At midday there was a call from Mohammad’s phone in the Stockwell area to Osman’s mobile in Dalgarno Gardens. No doubt this was to synchronise the timings of those north and south of the river.”

Mr Ibrahim, Mr Mohammad and Mr Omar walked separately to Stockwell Tube station. Mr Ibrahim caught a northbound train, getting off at Bank station and catching a 26 bus heading east. He sat on the top deck and soon after 1pm tried to set off his bomb; the detonator exploded but the main charge did not.

He ran off the bus and disappeared into the surrounding streets but clear CCTV evidence allegedly identified him as the bus bomber.

Mr Mohammad, wearing a New York top in what was thought to be a reference to 9/11, tried to set off his bomb at Oval. Mr Sweeney said: “In the tunnel en route, Mohammad turned so his rucksack was facing a mother with her child in a pushchair and then detonated — causing panic, fear and confusion even though the main charge failed to go off.” CCTV footage showed him boarding the train, on the train and as he escaped at Oval station.

He was also caught on camera on the streets as he escaped towards Brixton, discarding the New York top and the battery used to fire the bomb. Eight days later Mr Mohammad and Mr Ibrahim were arrested at the former’s flat in North Kensington.

Mr Omar had also taken a northbound train from Stockwell and, at Warren Street station, attempted to explode his bomb. It failed in an identical fashion. He fled into the streets.

The next day he caught a coach to Birmingham disguised as a Muslim woman, wearing a burka to hide his face. Mr Sweeney said: “CCTV evidence shows him at Golders Green coach station that afternoon and him at Birmingham that evening. He was arrested at a house in Birmingham by armed police officers on July 27. He was found fully clothed standing in a bath wearing a rucksack on his back.”

Mr Osman boarded the Hammersmith & City line at Westbourne Park and took a train heading in the direction of Hammersmith. Near Shepherd’s Bush station he triggered his bomb with the same partial results.

When the train stopped, he escaped through the window in a door between carriages and ran off along the track. He broke into a house and went out through the front door. Mr Osman was pursued by a member of the public but caught a bus towards Wandsworth. He reached Brighton where he was able to hide before, a day later, he escaped to Paris through the Channel Tunnel using a borrowed passport. He was arrested in Rome, where his brother lived, on July 29.

Mr Osman had set off with Mr Asiedo to carry out the bombing but, Mr Sweeney said, the latter had “lost his nerve”. He abandoned his rucksack in woodland at Little Wormwood Scrubs and dumped the battery device a short distance away. Both were found by police two days later.

There was evidence that Mr Asiedo had helped in a hasty clean-up operation at the bomb factory at New Southgate before adopting the alleged pretence that he knew nothing of the bomb plot. He went voluntarily to a police station to offer information but is said to have “lied on an epic scale”. The Crown alleges that Mr Osman also lied when he was interviewed by Italian police. Mr Sweeney added: “In interview under caution in Rome Osman claimed that the bombings on July 21 were a deliberate hoax in order to make a political point. Given the weight of the evidence as to his involvement what else could he say? The prosecution case is that this was no hoax.” The trial continues.

Muktar Said-Ibrahim
28, from North London. Born in Ethiopia and moved to Britain in 1990s. Had UK passport in the name Muktar Mohammad Said. Said to be the bomber on the No 26 bus in Hackney. Represented by George Carter Stephenson, QC.

Ramzi Mohammad
25, from West London. A Somali who lived in Britain from the mid-1990s. Accused of being the Oval bomber. Represented by Stephen Williamson, QC.

Yasin Hassan Omar
26, from North London. Born in Somalia and came to Britain as a teenager; was in foster care until 18. Alleged bomber at Warren Street. Represented by Peter Carter, QC.

Hussain Osman
28, from South London. Posed as a Somali when he arrived in Britain but is Ethiopian; Osman is not his real name. Accused of being the Shepherd’s Bush bomber. Represented by Anthony Jennings, QC.

Manfo Kwaku Asiedu
32, from West London. A Ghanaian, his real name is thought to be Bukhari. Said to have abandoned his bomb at Little Wormwood Scrubs after losing his nerve. Represented by Stephen Kamlish, QC.

Adel Yahya
23, from North London. An Ethiopian who studied at London Metropolitan University; left Britain in June 2005 but is alleged to have been involved in preparations for bombings. Represented by Peter Thornton, QC.

THE CHARGES

All six deny two charges: