British prosecutor outlines case against 6 in alleged plot to bomb London transit system

Monday, January 15th 2007, 6:16 am

By: News On 6

LONDON (AP) _ Six men plotted to kill London subway and bus passengers with bombs made from hydrogen peroxide and flour, two weeks after suicide bombers killed 52 commuters in the city, a prosecutor told a jury Monday.

No one was killed in the attempted bombings of three subway trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, because the devices failed to explode.

``We say that the failure of these bombs to explode owed nothing to the intentions of the defendants. It was simply the good fortune of the traveling public that this day they were spared,'' prosecutor Nigel Sweeney said, in outlining the government's case.

``This case is concerned with an extremist Muslim plot, the ultimate objective of which was to carry out a number of murderous suicide bombings,'' Sweeney told jurors.

The men, who are largely of East African descent, have pleaded not guilty to charges of plotting to bomb London's transport network two weeks after suicide attackers killed 52 commuters in the city on July 7, 2005.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 28; Ramzi Mohamed, 25; Yassin Omar, 26; Manfu Asiedu, 33; Adel Yahya, 24; and Hussain Osman, 28 _ all from London _ deny charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.

Sweeney said Osman had told police the bombs were ``a deliberate hoax in order to make a political point'' and were not intended to kill. But Sweeney said forensic scientists had tested the mixture, and ``in every experiment this mixture has exploded.''

The main explosive charge was 70 percent liquid hydrogen peroxide and 30 percent flour of the type used for chapatis, a type of Indian flat bread, Sweeney said.

The detonators contained triacetone triperoxide (TATP), an explosive used by Palestinian suicide bombers and by Richard Reid, who tried to detonate a shoe bomb on a U.S.-bound aircraft. The explosives were packed in plastic tubs, with screws, bolts and other pieces of metal taped on the outside as shrapnel, the prosecutor said.

Commercially available hydrogen peroxide is too diluted to be an effective explosive, Sweeney said, so the conspirators bought a total of 284 bottles and then boiled the substance to increase the concentration.

Traces of hydrogen peroxide and TATP were found in Omar's apartment, along with evidence that hydrogen peroxide had been boiled.

Sweeney said the components for the bombs were bought beginning in April 2005, proving the attacks were ``not some hastily arranged copycat'' of July 7.

``It follows from what I have been saying that the evidence in this case shows that the conspiracy had been in existence long before the events of July 7,'' Sweeney said.

Sweeney said the suspects _ most of whom were born in Ethiopia or Somalia _ were well known to one another long before the attacks, and five had been photographed by police on a camping trip in the Lake District of northern England in May 2004.

Sweeney said a witness would testify that the men had spoken of going camping in Scotland ``to get fit for jihad.''

He said police had found extremist Islamic literature in the suspects' apartments, and several had attended the Finsbury Park Mosque to hear speeches by now-jailed radical preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Sweeney said the men had constructed their bombs at the one-bedroom north London apartment rented by Omar.

The prosecutor said Ibrahim, one of the leaders of the plot, had undergone military training at a camp in Sudan in 2003 and also had traveled to Pakistan to train for jihad.

Asiedu was supposed to be one of the bombers, but lost his nerve at the last minute and dumped his bomb in a park where it was found two days later, Sweeney said. Yahya was involved in the plot but left Britain six weeks before the attempt, he added.

Most of the suspects were arrested in Britain a few days after the failed bombings. Osman fled to Italy and was detained in Rome a week after the attacks.

Eleven other people _ including Osman's wife and sister-in-law _ have been charged with assisting the accused or failing to disclose information. Their trials are due to take place later this year.

The case is being heard at a heavily fortified courthouse next to London's high-security Belmarsh Prison. It is expected to last between three and four months.