Lucy Bannerman
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An Islamic preacher who trained the 21/7 bombers taunted police on his return from an alleged terror training camp where exercises included somersaults, pole-vaulting and paintballing, a court was told yesterday.
Mohammed Hamid was said to have shouted “Here is your terrorist, I’m here, come and get me,” at officers. Woolwich Crown Court was told that he challenged them to capture him as he drove past Paddington Green police station in London with an undercover officer. He also claimed to have been organising training camps across Britain for up to 12 years.
Mr Hamid is accused of being a senior figure in a group linked with terrorist training, and faces various terrorist charges, including soliciting murder.
The court also heard the lyrics to a song said to have been sung by Attila Ahmet, Mr Hamid’s alleged co-conspirator, who has already pleaded guilty to soliciting murder. The lyrics, to be sung mockingly to the tune of the calypso-style Banana Boatsong, included: “Come mister Taleban, come implement Sharia . . . Come bomb England, before the daylight come.”
The jury was shown footage that is alleged to show Mr Hamid instructing groups of young men to perform military-style drills and practise firing imaginary weapons. It is claimed they enacted army training exercises in a secluded site in the New Forest during the weekend of April 28 to May 1, one of a number of weekend trips which, the prosecution claims, were designed to prepare the men for jihad.
The jury was shown images of the defendants doing forward rolls with varying degrees of success, and “leopard crawling” through swampy undergrowth. In one exercise, one man pole-vaulted across a stream, shouting Allahu akbar (God is greatest).
The video was recorded on the mobile phone of Kiber Da Costa, one of the five men brought to trial under new terror legislation, and was later seized during a police search of his home. One clip showed an unidentified man cutting the top off a watermelon with a large knife, to the excited shouts of onlookers – a “sickening” act, said the prosecution, which was allegedly influenced by images of the beheading of Western hostages that were in their possession.
Another, seized from the home of Mr Da Costa, featured Muslim children enacting a beheading.
Further footage, this time taken by a concealed camera in a forest clearing, showed the men practising casualty evacuation exercises, carrying individuals on their shoulders.
“What does that look like?” David Farrell, QC, for the prosecution, asked the jury. “Boy-scouting and camping? I suggest that the real purpose of that training is clear, is it not?”
The court heard that an undercover officer, codenamed Dawood, who infiltrated the group, joined the defendants for a paintballing trip to Pondwood Farm in Berkshire on June 18, 2006. With exclusive use of the site, the group spilt into two teams and played a game, that involved Dawood having to plant a flag they pretended was a bomb, the court heard.
Mr Hamid, who denies charges of soliciting murder, was said to have awarded the officer a medal for being the best player and allegedly told him that the paintballing trip was in preparation for the day they had to fight in the name of Allah.
Mr Farrell said: “It is clear from his account that this was not simply a fun game of paintballing.
“Its purpose was serious, albeit basic, military training, training, the prosecution say, for terrorism.” The court was also told that Mr Hamid, 50, boasted that his organisation of such camps had made him well known in Afghanistan.
Mr Hamid, Mousa Brown, 41, of Walthamstow, Mr Da Costa, 24, of West Norwood, Mohammed al-Figari, 42, of Tottenham, and Kader Ahmed, 20, of Plaistow, all London, deny a number of terrorism related charges.
The trial continues.
Come Mr Taleban
The court was told Ahmet sang the following lyrics, to the tune of the Banana Boat song:
‘Come mister Taleban, come implement Sharia . . . Come bomb England, before the daylight come’
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