Sun, Mar 18, 2007 page6

• London bombs duds, court told

  LONDON The man allegedly responsible for the explosive devices in the failed 2005 terrorist attacks on London said he was protesting `the plight of Muslims everywhere'

  • THE GUARDIAN
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  The man "principally responsible" for creating the explosive devices used in the failed "terrorist attacks" on London in the summer of 2005 defended his actions for the first time in public on Friday. Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, the alleged bomber of the number 26 London bus on July 21 2005, took to the witness box at Woolwich crown court (south London) to explain that he made the devices in such a way that they would not explode.

  At the start of the defense case, Ibrahim was asked by his counsel to explain in a "very short sentence" why he had carried the device on to the bus on July 21 2005.

  He replied: "To protest against the plight of Muslims everywhere, especially in Iraq."

  Ibrahim was the first of the suspects defending in the witness box after nearly nine weeks in which the Crown has judged the six July 21 defendants as Islamist extremists committed to blowing themselves up so as to kill and maim scores of people on the London transport system.

  With his right hand on the Koran, he swore to Allah on telling the truth.

  His lawyer, George Carter Stephenson QC, said Ibrahim accepted he had been the person on the bus that day, in Hackney, east London, filmed on CCTV, and carrying a "device."

  "Did you intend or hope that that device would explode?" asked Carter Stephenson.

  "No," Ibrahim replied.

  Carter Stephenson asked: "Was the device an improvised explosive device. In other words was it to your knowledge capable of detonating?"

  "No, it was not capable of detonating."

  "It is the prosecution case that on July 21 2005 you were to be a suicide bomber."

  "No, that's not true," he replied.

  The court has already heard that Ibrahim was "principally responsible" for making the rucksack bombs which were taken on to three subway (tube) trains and a bus on July 21. A fifth device was found dumped in Wormwood Scrubs, west London.

  The Crown says the rucksack bombs were made out of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and chapatti flour, with a detonator of the high explosive triacetone triperoxide, all of which were created in the kitchen of the north London flat of the defendant Yassin Omar.

  The Crown maintains it was just luck that the bombs did not explode, killing and maiming many people.

  Ibrahim claimed that he deliberately diluted the devices' hydrogen peroxide with tap water to ensure they would not explode. He conducted tests to ensure they would only go "pop," he said.

  His case is that he never intended to kill or seriously injure anyone.

  Ibrahim told the court yesterday that he had come to the UK in 1990 aged 13, taking refuge, with his family, from the war between his native Eritrea and Ethiopia. He attended school in north-west London until he was 16, passing two GCSEs before studying leisure and tourism at Harrow Weald College where he did not finish the course. The Crown alleges he had military training in Sudan in 2003, where he fired a rocket-propelled grenade. He denies he went to Sudan for that training.

  Ibrahim told the court that after working at two fast-food restaurants in Harrow, west London, he let his apartment in east London for ?1,500 (US$2919) for three months and used the money to go to Sudan to see relatives in January 2003.

  "Due to the war a lot of Eritreans went to Sudan to escape," he said. He spent two weeks with uncles and aunts in Khartoum before going to two other cities to visit other family members.

  "Did you tell anyone that you learned to fire a rocket propelled grenade there?" Carter Stephenson asked.

  "No," Ibrahim replied.

  When he returned to London in March 2003 Ibrahim worked at a shop in east London, where he sold handbags and clothes.

  Hussein Osman, 28, Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, 26, Adel Yahya, 23, Manfu Kwaku Asiedu, 32 and Ramzi Mohammed, 25, all from London, deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.

  The case continues.
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