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Men 'tried 15 times to detonate car bombs'
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent20 Oct 2008
FIFTEEN calls were made to mobile phone detonators attached to two car bombs left in the West End, a jury heard today.
Repeated attempts were made to spark the petrol, gas cylinder and nail devices, Woolwich crown court was told. The phones left in each car revealed up to four missed calls each.
Police said the ringing circuit in each was wired to a light bulb, held in a syringe and surrounded by match heads. The devices were intended to ignite the vapours swirling inside the vehicles and create an explosion. But a lack of oxygen prevented a potentially deadly fireball, the jury was told.
Jurors were shown pictures of the two similar improvised car bombs for the first time, which revealed how patio gas cylinders had been left in each rear passenger footwell.
The phone detonators, two in each vehicle, were left between them. Hundreds of nails were scattered inside the vehicles with barrels of petrol packed into the boot. The cars were left outside Tiger Tiger nightclub, in Haymarket, and in Cockspur Street on 29 June last year.
Bilal Abdulla, 29, was captured on CCTV as he parked one Mercedes outside the nightclub and ran off, the court heard. His DNA was found on the car.
Abdulla is on trial with Mohammed Asha, 28, accused of conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions. The two men, who worked as doctors at NHS hospitals in Glasgow and Staffordshire, deny the offences. The trial continues.
