Watch Out

After quoting the transcript, Mr Rumfitt told the jury: "It’s apparent that Mahmood knows what he [Khan] is talking about. It’s that information which Mahmood should have taken straight to the authorities and didn’t."

Mr Rumfitt also told the jury that Khan, 37, was at the centre of a terrorist "cell" or network based in the Birmingham area, and was active in gathering items such as laser range-finders and night-vision equipment to be sent out to Pakistan for use by terrorists operating near the Afghan border.

Mr Rumfitt added: "The prosecution say that Parviz Khan is a fanatic. He is a man who has the most violent and extreme views. He was enraged by the idea that there were Muslim soldiers in the British Army, some of them Muslims from The Gambia in West Africa."

The jury was also told that Khan wanted another man, Basiru Gassama, a Gambian national, to help to identify a potential victim of the abductionplot.

Gassama, 30, of Hodge Hill, Birmingham, has also pleaded guilty of failing to inform the authorities of the plan to kill a soldier.

In fact, the court heard, Gassama never came up with the details of an individual target for Khan, and the plan "lay dormant" after July 2006. Khan had remained determined, and in November 2006 he revived his interest in the plot.

The jury was told that a bug placed in Khan’s home by the security services recorded "highly incriminating and damaging comments" made during conversations inside the property.

On November 6, 2006, Mr Rumfitt said, Gassama visited Khan and was shown videos of beheadings in an attempt to persuade him to help the cell. "To his credit, there is no evidence that Gassama ever did help. On the other hand, he failed to report Khan to the authorities," counsel for the Crown continued.

The jury was also told that Khan made visits to a shipping and freight company in Birmingham in 2005 and 2006 in order to send packages to a village in Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, which was a hotbed of radicalism. He described the shipments, weighing up to a tonne, as aid for earthquake victims, such as medicines and clothes or "personal effects".

The court was told that the cargoes included equipment ordered by his terrorist contacts in Pakistan, such as electronic equipment, sleeping bags, two-way radios and waterproof map-holders.

When he was stopped by a port official in July 2006 on his return to the UK he was found with a notepad. "He was bringing a shopping list from terrorist contacts of materials they wanted sent back in the next delivery," Mr Rumfitt said. Among items written in the notebook was a laser range-finder.

In December 2006, Khan visited Manchester airport with relatives under the guise of a family outing to Pakistan, the court heard. He was under surveillance and, as he checked in, investigators went through his luggage. Inside the suitcases and bags were walkie-talkies, map holders and a bug detector.

A search of Khan’s home in Alum Rock found similar items stacked up and ready to be packed, the court was told.

The jury was told that two other men from Birmingham, Mohammed Irfan, 31, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, have also admitted helping Khan to supply the equipment.

Two remaining defendants are standing trial. Amjad Mahmood, 32, of Alum Rock, Birmingham, denies knowing about the soldier plot between April 2006 and February 2007, andfailing to disclose it to the authorities.

Zahoor Iqbal, 30, of Perry Barr, Birmingham, has pleaded not guilty to possessing a document or record likely to be useful to a terrorist, namely a computer disc called Encyclopaedia Jihad.

Mr Iqbal and Mr Mahmood also deny engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism between April 2006 and February 2007.

Addressing the charges against Mr Mahmood, Mr Rumfitt told the jury: "We also say that Mahmood was told of the plot and although it’s clear that Khan was serious, neither Gassama nor Mahmood did anything to warn the authorities in order to save a soldier from what would have been a ghastly death."

The court heard that Khan was bugged telling Mr Iqbal about a high-tech video camera for the terrorists to make propaganda films and "wills" for broadcast on the television channel Al -Jazeera.

"He has been asked by his masters in Pakistan to send a sophisticated video camera so they can release films through Al-Jazeera," said Mr Rumfitt.

"What he is talking about is guerillas in the border area on day and night operations to use as propaganda to inspire young Muslims around the world to join them."

The wills, said the lawyer, would be filmed messages to be broadcast on television once the terrorists had blown themselves up.

The trial continues

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