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The airline bombers plotted the atrocity that was intended to eclipse 9/11 from a rundown flat in east London.
They paid £138,000 for the re-possessed address at 386A Forest Road, Walthamstow, and were in the process of converting it into a bomb factory when police struck.
When officers searched the kitchen they found empty bottles of Oasis and Lucozade — intended as the containers for liquid bombs to be detonated in mid-air over American cities.
The contents of the bottles had been carefully emptied through tiny circular holes drilled in their base so the bottles' seal caps would not be disturbed.
Secret footage shows Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Tanvir Hussain inside the property preparing the bottles.
Click here to see inside the flat
Anti-terrorist police and MI5 concealed a camera and hidden listening devices inside the flat in the summer of 2006 as they closed in on the gang.
Grainy black-and-white footage from the camera was shown to jurors at Woolwich crown court.
They revealed Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Hussain using a power drill to make a hole in the base of a soft drink bottle.
The film was shot using a “fish-eye” lens from ankle height. A second camera, hidden across the street, captured the men arriving and leaving the flat.
Fingerprints and DNA samples from the two men were found on some of the bottles.
In the same cupboard were four packets of Tang, in orange, mango, pineapple and grape flavours.
The bombers planned to use the powdered soft drink as a “fuel” for the explosive and disguise it with food colouring.
Also found in the flat were latex gloves, syringes, pipettes, measuring cylinders and hand clamps.
Jurors were also shown pictures of a PH measuring device and a handheld device for measuring electrical current, charge and resistance.
In a box in the bedroom were jars containing food dyes and 19 modified AA Toshiba batteries of a type sold only in Pakistan. Some battery casings had been split and the ends removed.
Officers also discovered 18 miniature lightbulbs with the glass filed away and a disposal camera to have been used as a detonator.
The covert listening device inserted into the flat in early August also recorded the extraordinary moment when one man made a chilling martyrdom speech.
The bug recorded Umar Islam making a suicide video in which he declared: “We are doing this in order to gain the pleasure of our Lord.”
Police believe that the men made other suicide videos inside the flat.
It was the first time UK officials were aware of so-called martyrdom videos being recorded by the cell.
The recording was another sign that the bombers were possibly just days away from carrying out the mission.
The bombs were to consist of two segments — with the main charge contained inside plastic Lucozade or Oasis bottles and the HMTD detonator in ordinary AA battery casings.
Police discovered 38 litres of hydrogen peroxide, which was to be the main explosive, at or near Assad Sarwar's home in High Wycombe. The Forest Road flat is now empty.
A few months after the trio's arrests, Polish tenants had moved in but have since left.
Reader views (1)
They'd have been better off blowing up that flat.
- Steve, London, 08/09/2009 12:40
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