THE two men who stood in the presidential suite overlooking Newark airport gazed through the window at aircraft landing and taking off. They smiled at the prospect of blowing the aircraft out of the skies.

Their conversation was conspiratorial and filled with hatred for the United States. “The Americans are bastards,” said Hemant Lakhani, a Londoner who had flown in the night before from Heathrow.

His host spoke of how he wanted to start a jihad (holy war) by blowing up passenger aircraft across America.

The meeting between Mr Lakhani, 69, an Indian-born Briton who posed as the supplier of ground-to-air missiles, and his companion, who used only his middle name — Haji — lasted for almost three hours and was the culmination of nearly two years of careful planning.

Haji claimed to be acting on behalf of Muslim extremists, originally from Somalia, who had formed a terrorist cell in the United States. He said that he wanted to buy Soviet-made weapons. Mr Lakhani told Haji that with the missiles he could provide, it would be possible to co-ordinate a series of attacks.

“If 15 planes come down at the same time, they will be shaken,” Mr Lakhani boasted.

The handover never took place. Instead, FBI agents, who had been in the neighbouring room listening, poured into the $550-a-night (£310) hotel suite to arrest Mr Lakhani.

He was charged with a series of terrorist offences, including smuggling ground-to-air missiles into America. He was also charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorism and with money- laundering.

The trial will open in New Jersey tomorrow, but his local lawyer believes that Mr Lakhani, who has no criminal record or known ties to terrorism, was the victim of entrapment by American and Russian agents working on behalf of the US. Haji, later discovered to be a double agent working for the FBI, walked free.

The apparent success of the arrest was praised by President Bush, who took an unusually close interest. “We got a significant arms-dealer and a dangerous terrorist,” he said. “This is a major step in the global war against terrorism.” His praise was, in part, reassurance to the American people, who had become increasingly paranoid. Yet despite the infusion of $18 billion to combat terrorism and the introduction of tougher laws, such as the Patriot Act, there have been few terrorist convictions in the US.

Far from being a leading terrorist, Mr Lakhani was allegedly, at best, a minor if unscrupulous trader who has failed at virtually every deal that he tried to set up. Henry Klingeman, his lawyer, will argue that he is a victim of entrapment and “if there was any crime committed, it was only because of the extraordinary steps taken by the US government agents”.

In London’s West End rag trade, people who know Mr Lakhani describe him as “more Del Boy than Del Boy”, after the character in Only Fools and Horses. Martin Greene, a businessman who has known Mr Lakhani for 35 years, said: “Everything Lakhani touches has turned to dust. He always had big ideas, big plans and was always working on the ultimate deal. Trouble is, the man’s a complete loser.”

Hemant Lakhani is dwarfed by the prisoners and guards in Passaic County Jail in New Jersey, where he has been held for 16 months. His hair, once neatly cut and dyed black, is now almost entirely white and cascades over his ears.

In interviews Mr Lakhani pleaded his innocence. “I am not a terrorist, and not associated with any terrorist group,” he said. “If I am guilty of anything, it is stupidity and greed. All I wanted to do was to make money, but I got myself into something I didn’t know much about.

“Yes, I said those terrible things. But I didn’t mean them. Haji made me say these bad things. He had a way of opening a conversation for me and then expecting me to say bad words. Haji knew our conversations were being recorded, I didn’t. He played me along to say these bad things because I thought that was what he wanted to hear from me.”

Mr Lakhani, originally from Gujarat in India, arrived in London as a lawyer in 1958. He joined the expanding fashion industry in the West End. In prison he spoke of his connections to “important people and those with real status”.

His life changed, he said, after he was introduced to Haji by a business acquaintance in Dubai in 2001. Although Mr Lakhani claimed not to be an arms-dealer, he admitted brokering a deal in 2003 that involved the sale of 11 armoured vehicles to the President of Angola.

“Yes that is true,” he said, “but that was different, that was as a favour to a friend. I simply brokered that.”

Catalogues of Soviet-made armaments were discovered by Scotland Yard anti-terrorist officers at his home in Hendon, North London, soon after his arrest in August 2003. But he said: “Haji asked me for these catalogues, I got them from the suppliers. I was just trying to impress him.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Why Witherspoon is highlighting domestic violence
• No, MP does not stand for Mostly Plastered
• Don’t bottle out of your champagne moment