London News and Reviews

'21/7 bomber wanted to blow up 12-storey block of flats'

Mukhtar Ibrahim: planned to booby-trap a flat and set off four bombs on the tube

Curtis House in North London, where one of the alleged July 21 terrorists set-up a booby-trapped bomb

Blame game: Manfo Asiedu Manfo Asiedu dramatically changed his defence

The man behind the 21/7 terror plot intended it to be 'bigger and better' than 7/7, a court heard this afternoon.

Muktar Said Ibrahim wanted to match the attacks on the transport system on 7 July - and also bring down a 12-storey block of flats in north London, it is alleged.

The claim came from one of Ibrahim's coaccused, Manfo Asiedu, who dramatically changed his defence today at Woolwich crown court.

Ibrahim and Asiedu are two of six Africanborn men living in London accused of attempting to cause carnage two weeks after 7/7 in which 52 commuters were murdered and 700 injured. The six have claimed it was a hoax to draw attention to injustices to Muslims and their devices were not meant to go off. But the prosecution insists that only incredible luck stopped their rucksack bombs from exploding.

Asiedu, through his lawyer Stephen Kamlish, accused Ibrahim of also setting an improvised bomb in the sideboard of his f lat which was designed to explode the moment a police officer opened it.

The flat was full of hydrogen peroxide which would have caused devastation to the block in New Southgate the court heard. Mr Kamlish said: "Four real bombs (three on Tube trains and one on a bus) and one in a block of flats, a tower, destroyed, going up in a ball of flames. That was your plan, wasn't it?"

Ibrahim replied: "That's totally not true,î - a response he used again and again.

Mr Kamlish suggested that Ibrahim wanted to do a copycat of the 7/7 bombs and that Ibrahim had booby-trapped his flat.

Mr Kamlish then said: "Your 21/7 bombing was to be bigger and better in your twisted opinion than that of 7/7." Ibrahim replied: "That's your opinion."

Mr Kamlish also said that Asiedu had only been recruited the night before the attacks because Ibrahim decided he could not kill himself for any particular cause.

Ibrahim, the self-styled "emir" of the Islamic militant group, "lost his bottle" and decided that he personally did not want to blow himself up as a suicide bomber, the court heard.

The jury have been told that attempts were made to detonate bombs on the Tube at Shepherd's Bush on the Hammersmith & City Line, the Northern Line near Oval, the Victoria line Tube at Warren Street and the No26 bus at Shoreditch High Street.

On each occasion the potentially lethal home-made bombs failed to ignite, the court heard. Asiedu took his bomb away from the Tube and dumped it on Little Wormwood Scrubs, the court has heard.

The booby trap was left at the alleged bomb factory in Curtis House, the court was told. It was set to detonate the moment someone pulled the flap at the front open, said Mr Kamlish.

He said that the whole area was covered with dried-up "main chargeî the chapati f lour and hydrogen peroxide used in the bombs taken on the Tube.

Ibrahim's DNA was on masking tape left on the floor. Mr Kamlish said Ibrahim had ensured Asiedu was out of the building working on a painting and decorating job while he planted the device. It was only by chance that Asiedu found it later and was able to dismantle it. "Oh, he found it and it didn't blow him up, eh?"Ibrahim replied. "I didn't leave no device, no booby trap."

Mr Kamlish said: "This flat was meant to blow and kill whoever opened the sideboard and anyone else in the building."

Ibrahim: "That's murder and if you are a Muslim you go to hellfire if you kill."

Mr Kamlish also accused Ibrahim of trying to stop Asiedu from telling the truth while they were both on remand in top security-Belmarsh prison awaiting trial.

"You have been trying to convince him what to write in his defence case statement," said the QC. Ibrahim served two prison sentences for robbery and is a convicted sex offender, the court heard.

At the age of 15 he lured a schoolgirl into an alleyway in Wembley and fondled her breasts, the jury was told. Ibrahim pleaded guilty to indecent assault and was placed under a supervision order for 12 months.

In the space of a few weeks in 1995 he was involved in two robberies and sentenced to three years and two years consecutively. In the first he and an accomplice trailed a 77-year-old woman from Southgate tube station shortly before midnight, forced her to the ground and stole her handbag.

In the second a gang of five youths confronted two teenagers in Hertford, punched and kicked one to the ground and stole his watch.

Ibrahim, 29 of Stoke Newington, Asiedu, 33 of Finchley, Hussein Osman, 28 of Stockwell, Yassin Hassan Omar, 26 of New Southgate, Ramzi Mohammed, 25 of North Kensington, and Adel Yahya, 24 of Tottenham, all plead not guilty to conspiracy to murder between January and July 2005.

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