July 21 accused 'worked with 7/7 bombers'

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, spent two months in Pakistan at the same time as 7/7 terrorists Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer

Manfo Asiedu who has sensationally turned against his co-accused

One of the alleged July 21 bomb plotters has been accused by a co-defendant of collaborating with the 7/7 suicide bombers on a joint terrorist campaign in the UK.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, spent two months in Pakistan at the same time as 7/7 terrorists Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, a jury was told.

The barrister representing July 21 suspect Manfo Asiedu - who has sensationally turned against his co-accused - suggested to Ibrahim that he had met Khan and Tanweer and agreed co-ordinated suicide attacks two weeks apart in 2005.

Stephen Kamlish QC also pointed out that 7/7 and 21/7 were the only two occasions when bombs made from hydrogen peroxide had been seen in the UK.

Cross-examining Ibrahim, Mr Kamlish said he had documentary evidence that Ibrahim, Khan and Tanweer were all in Pakistan at the same time at the end of 2004 into 2005. Khan and Tanweer attended an Al Qaeda training camp there, he added.

Mr Kamlish said: "Has there been any discussion between you and them on how to make effective bombs, to start a bombing campaign in this country? The first was 7/7 and the second was going to be 21/7."

Ibrahim denied ever meeting Khan or Tanweer. Kamlish: "The only two occasions on which the authorities in this country had ever come across an improvised device made with hydrogen peroxide and an organic substance is 7/7 and 21/7."

Ibrahim: "Yes."

Kamlish: "There is a question mark whether or not the only two ever-known bombs made from hydrogen peroxide are the 7/7 and 21/7 bombs and you were in Pakistan at the same time (as Khan and Tanweer) - you see the coincidence, don't you?"

Ibrahim: "When you say this fact, yes."

Kamlish: "It wasn't the case that the plan to use hydrogen peroxide was devised between you and others in Pakistan?"

Ibrahim: "No. From what I know this has been around. The Palestinians use them."

The exchange between Mr Kamlish and Ibrahim happened on Thursday at Woolwich Crown Court, but can only now be published after the judge lifted a reporting ban yesterday.

Ibrahim has insisted throughout the trial that the rucksack 'bombs' he and four other men were carrying on July 21 were duds, and that the whole enterprise was a 'hoax' designed to start a debate about the Iraq war.

But on Thursday counsel for Asiedu, who dumped his 'bomb' in a park at the last minute, accused Ibrahim of planning a bombing campaign on London's transport system which would be 'bigger and better' than 7/7 and include a booby-trapped device which would blow up a 12-storey tower block.

Asiedu, 33, is now seated separately in the dock as a 'protective measure'.

Mr Kamlish suggested Ibrahim regarded himself as a 'soldier', a word which had been used on a 'martyrdom video' made by Islamic extremist Khan in Pakistan and played to the jury in court.

"Until we feel security, you will be our targets ... we are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation."

Ibrahim, who is said to have tried to detonate a suicide bomb on a number 26 bus in Shoreditch, London, insisted he did not believe in suicide bombing or killing.

The jury has been told that the alleged bombs failed to go off through sheer 'good fortune' because the hydrogen peroxide in them had begun to decompose in the hot weather or because of an error in their manufacture.

Ibrahim, Asiedu, and co-defendants Yassin Omar, 26, Hussain Osman, 28, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, and Adel Yahya, 24 all deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

The trial continues

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