In his first interview from an Italian prison, where he is due to be questioned by a senior detective from Scotland Yard on Tuesday, Osman said he had “nothing in common” with “kamikazes” (suicide bombers).

Replying to written questions from The Sunday Times through an intermediary, the alleged Shepherd’s Bush bomber said he had been motivated by the war in Iraq, which had made him “very sad”.

“I’m against all wars that cause the deaths of innocent people,” he said. “Too many people are dying there.”

Held in solitary confinement at Rome’s Regina Coeli jail, Osman spends most of his time sleeping and praying. He is allowed a shower and exercise every day, but no newspapers, radio or television.

Asked what he had set out to achieve with his actions, the Ethiopian-born Osman, who arrived in Britain in 1996, replied: “I wanted to show the British what people go through in war. Except that in war people actually die.”

Osman repeated his insistence to magistrates that he had not intended to die or to kill passengers on the Tube, but to create a scare. He claims the bag he was carrying contained only a detonator and flour. Scotland Yard says it was a lethal bomb that failed to explode only because of one mistake in the way it was made.

“I have nothing against the people of London,” he said. “My act was a demonstrative one . . . If I had wanted to kill, I would have repeated the attack the next day.”

Osman denied he had planned to blow himself up. “Kamikazes are completely different from me. I have nothing in common with them,” he said. “I could have blown myself up the next day or whenever they (the police) came for me . . . But it’s not like that — I was scared, so I fled.”

Osman boarded the Eurostar from Waterloo to Paris on July 25 using his Ethiopian passport and carrying £500, according to his testimony. He travelled on to Rome and was caught there at the home of his brother Remzi, who was also arrested.

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