The trial of the alleged July 21 bombers took an unexpected turn today when one of the defendants dramatically accused another of planning a "bigger and better" version of the July 7 attacks.

Two months into the trial, which has seen the six men accused of trying to bomb London's transport system in 2005 variously claim that they had no intention of hurting anybody, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, the so-called "fifth bomber", accused his co-defendant, Muktar Said Ibrahim, of precisely the opposite.

Mr Asiedu's defence counsel, Stephen Kamlish, QC, told the court that Mr Ibrahim had fashioned himself as the "emir" or prince of the group and had planned to destroy four Tube trains as well as the flat where they allegedly made their bombs.

“We say your 21/7 bombs were to be bigger and better in your twisted thinking than that of 7/7," Mr Kamlish told the court. "Your plan was to explode real bombs on the London transport system. These were not to be hoax devices.”

Mr Kamlish said that his client had been ordered to take part in the attacks the day before because Mr Ibrahim, 29, had lost his "bottle".

"You actually decided that you couldn’t kill yourself for any particular cause, therefore you had to find a fourth person to carry out the fourth bomb," he said. Prosecutors allege that on the day of the purported attacks, Mr Asiedu too lost his nerve and dumped his homemade bomb near Wormwood Scrubs.

Running against the apparent defence tactics of the alleged terror cell, Mr Kamlish went on to accuse Mr Ibrahim of not only attempting to replicate the atrocities of July 7, when 52 people were killed by bombs on three London Tube trains and a bus, but of trying to exceed them.

He said that Mr Ibrahim attempted to booby-trap 58 Curtis House, New Southgate, where the group allegedly made their bombs, so the apartment would explode when the police arrived.

Wearing protective gloves, Mr Kamlish held up a piece of the flat's sideboard and told the jury that the inside of the furniture had been deliberately lined with an explosive mixture of hydrogen peroxide and chapati flour.

“You had left a whole device and you booby-trapped the flat so that when the door opened it would explode," he said.

“Four real bombs on the Tube and one block of flats, a tower, destroyed, going up in a ball of flames. That was your plan, wasn’t it?” Asked Mr Kamlish.

“That’s totally not true,” replied Mr Ibrahim.

On the stand this morning, Mr Ibrahim rejected the new turn of events, saying: “I do not know why Asiedu is making these accusations" and telling the court that that Mr Asiedu, who came to the UK from Ghana in 2003, had agreed to take part in the operation at least three days before July 21.

Earlier this month the court was shown CCTV footage of Mr Asiedu on the day of the alleged attacks, taking a bus into central London and the Trocadero amusement arcade after he is said to have abandoned his bomb.

He originally told police that he did not know any of his five co-defendants and that he and went to a mosque and played basketball in a park on the afternoon of July 21. Prosecutors have accused him of repeatedly changing his story.

Mr Kamlish said today that in the days after July 21 Mr Asiedu returned to the flat in Curtis House and dismantled Mr Ibrahim's so-called boobytrap. Mr Ibrahim is accused to trying to detonate a bomb on a No 26 bus in Hackney.

Mr Asiedu, of no fixed address, and Mr Ibrahim, of Stoke Newington, north London, are among six men accused of charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life. The entire group, including Mr Osman, 28, of no fixed address; Yassin Omar, 26, from New Southgate, north London; Ramzi Mohammed, 25, of North Kensington, west London; and Adel Yahya, 24, of High Road, Tottenham, north London, deny the charges.

The trial continues.

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