Two NHS doctors plotted �indiscriminate and wholesale� murder in a series of car bombings across Britain, a court was told today.
Two NHS doctors plotted "indiscriminate and wholesale" murder in a series of car bombings across Britain, a court was told today.
Bilal Abdulla, 28, and Mohammed Asha, 29, were members of an Islamic terrorist cell, Woolwich Crown Court in London was told.
Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said they wanted to kill the innocent and seize public attention around the world.
Mr Laidlaw said: "Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles.
"No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas.
"In short, these men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale.
"In addition to the killing of the innocent, the objective of course was to seize public attention both here in this country and internationally."
Mr Laidlaw was opening the prosecution against the two men accused of plotting car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.
Iraqi-born Abdulla was arrested after a burning Jeep was driven into the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport on June 30 last year.
Jordanian Asha, a neurologist, was arrested on the M6 motorway in Cheshire later that day.
In the early hours of June 29, two Mercedes cars containing petrol, gas cylinders and nails were driven into London's West End.
One was discovered outside the Tiger, Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, causing hundreds of revellers to be evacuated.
The second car, parked in adjoining Cockspur Street, was towed to a nearby car pound. It was made safe later that day.
Abdulla, of Houston, Glasgow, and Asha, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, deny the offences.
The terrorists hoped to leave the public "gripped by fear" by carrying out these attacks with no warning about where the next would occur, the court heard.
The plotters knew public anxiety would be heightened as it was in the summer of 2005 after the July 7 attacks on London and the failed bombings a fortnight later, the jury was told.
Mr Laidlaw said: "The terrorists knew perfectly well that the public here would be gripped by fear - they would not know when and where the terrorists would strike next."
The first attempted attack involved driving two cars packed with gas canisters, containers full of petrol and "large quantities" of nails into London's West End on June 29 last year.
This attack, had it been successful, would have resulted in "the loss of many lives", the court heard, in particular young people enjoying themselves or on their way home after a night out would have been hit.
Mr Laidlaw said: "The repeated attempts to detonate the two vehicles failed, but not through any lack of effort by the bombers.
"It was no more than good fortune that nobody died."
Even after this attack failed, the terrorists still had available at least two more vehicles and further supplies of gas, petrol and electronic initiation devices, the court heard.
But the "unexpected failure" of the bombings in London led to a "very dramatic" change in the men's approach.
They knew the police and intelligence services would soon be after them because the cars had not been destroyed and there were clues to their identity to be discovered in them.
But there was no change in the bombers' "ultimate purpose", which was "to kill and maim", Mr Laidlaw said.
Mr Laidlaw said: "Apart from the shocking nature of the activity that these two defendants were engaged in, the extraordinary thing about this case is that both these defendants are doctors.
"Dr Abdulla is an Iraqi and Dr Asha is from Jordan. Having studied at universities in their homelands, they sought and obtained work in British hospitals to complete their medical training.
"While here, as the evidence demonstrates, in fact they turned their attention away from the treatment of illness to the planning of murder.
"Material found in their possession after their arrests reveals that both men hold or adhere to extreme Islamic belief and that both share, despite their professions and their obligations to save life and avert suffering, they both share the same extreme religious and murderous ideology as has inspired other terrorists who have struck at or threatened this country in recent years."
Mr Laidlaw said the attacks on London's West End and Glasgow Airport were to be revenge attacks.
He said: "Punishment brought to bear on the British people for what these two see as our country's part in the persecution of Muslim communities all over the world, but particularly in Palestine, in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The jury was told the two men spent at least six months preparing what terrorists would call the "spectacular" attacks.
The prosecutor said a house with a garage in a quiet residential area near Paisley, on the outskirts of Glasgow, was used as a bomb factory.
Mr Laidlaw said a reconnaissance trip was also made in May last year when members of the terrorist cell visited central London, including the West End and the area around the Old Bailey.
He said the men also purchased a large number of gas canisters, nails to be used as shrapnel, and fuel and oil to add to the car bombs.
Mr Laidlaw said: "None of this activity, I hasten to add, was observed by the police or the intelligence services at the time.
"Who would have suspected two doctors to have been involved in such planning?
"The men, as will also emerge, were careful in their behaviour.
"They were plainly conscious of the importance of not bringing unnecessary attention upon themselves and, insofar as was possible, of the importance of covering their tracks and making detection of their activity difficult."
Mr Laidlaw outlined details of the two attacks the men are accused of launching.
On June 28 last year two old Mercedes packed with gas canisters, petrol and nails were driven from Scotland to London and left in the West End just after midnight.
The first car was parked outside a nightclub called Tiger Tiger on the Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus.
At that time there were more than 500 customers inside the club, as well as staff, bouncers and taxi drivers outside, the court heard.
Members of the public were also walking along the road at that time.
The second Mercedes was parked in nearby Cockspur Street, next to a night bus stop at which "a relatively large number of people" were waiting when it was put into position.
The prosecution suggested that it was deliberately placed here so it would be in the path of those evacuated from the Haymarket after the first device went off.
The bombers intended to set off the devices using an initiation circuit made from a mobile phone, the court heard.
When a call was received, it was supposed to send a current, lighting a bulb and igniting the air-fuel mixture in the car.
The terrorists prepared for a technical problem by using two mobile phones in each car, the second as a back-up in case the first failed.
But despite making a series of calls to the telephones intended to ignite the bombs, the cars failed to explode, the court heard.
Mr Laidlaw explained that they had allowed the "fuel richness" of the air in the vehicle to become too high, meaning there was not enough oxygen for the petrol and gas to ignite.
The prosecutor said: "Whilst neither of the vehicles exploded, the intention of those involved in this plot is, we submit, clear.
"Why else leave cars armed in this way, with explosive devices of this sort with nails added to them?
"The potential consequences of the bombs going off in this sort of area in central London hardly need to be set out.
"At that time there were over 500 customers inside the Tiger Tiger nightclub and, as I have said, the Haymarket was still, even at that time of night, busy with people.
"We suggest that had the green Mercedes exploded, the chance of people being killed was very high, with loss of life almost inevitable."
After the bombs failed to explode, the terrorists decided on a "very significant" change of approach to their campaign, the court heard.
Mr Laidlaw said: "The terrorists knew that, having failed to carry out the bombings in London, they had only a very limited amount of time available to them before they would be caught."
The next day the two bombers travelled to Glasgow and overnight and into the Saturday morning they prepared a Jeep for the attack on Glasgow Airport, the jury was told.
The prosecutor said: "On this occasion there was no remote detonation device incorporated in the Jeep.
"For the attack in Scotland, the driver and the passenger, by using petrol bombs and by spraying petrol around, were going to try and blow the car up with themselves inside.
"This was, for all intent and purposes, a mobile incendiary bomb with specific explosive content in the form of mobile gas canisters."
The vehicle was driven at speed at the airport's main terminal doors but became stuck in the entrance, the court heard.
Despite the men using their petrol bombs and pouring petrol around the Jeep, it did not explode.
One of the two men in the car, Kafeel Ahmed, 28, died from the injuries he suffered in the attack.
Mr Laidlaw alleged that Abdullah was a "central figure" in the terrorist cell.
At the time of the attack he was working at a hospital in Glasgow, and it was he who rented the property on the outskirts of the city where the bombs were constructed, the court heard.
Abdullah also aided Kafeel Ahmed in buying the cars and the component parts for the bombs, the jury was told.
He drove the Mercedes which was parked outside Tiger Tiger, made a "series of determined efforts" to set off the London bombs, and was the passenger in the Jeep when it crashed into Glasgow Airport, it was alleged.
The jury was told Abdulla will claim the car bombings were intended to damage property but not to kill.
Mr Laidlaw said that when jurors consider evidence of how the devices were made and their locations, they will find this defence "ludicrous".
He said: "This is a man determined on committing murder.
"It was simply good fortune that the bombs did not go off in London. Equally, it was simply luck that protected the people of Scotland."
Mr Laidlaw said Asha did not have a front-line role in the terrorist conspiracy and was not present at either attack.
But he said Abdulla contacted him at every key stage of his preparations, by telephone and in personal meetings.
The prosecutor said Asha was held in "very high esteem" by Abdulla and he may have provided spiritual and ideological guidance.
Mr Laidlaw said: "The second man Dr Asha's role is a less obvious and less visible one although he was obviously, suggest the prosecution, an important member of this terrorist cell."
The jury was told Asha also provided money to pay for materials including the bomb vehicles.
Mr Laidlaw said: "There is, the prosecution suggest, no other sensible explanation for Asha's contact with and his connection with the activity of the bombers.
"This simply cannot be explained away on the basis of a friendship between the two men.
"If you think about it, men such as Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed, who were involved in this sort of secretive, highly dangerous activity, would not be calling and visiting Asha at such crucial times and so consistently throughout the life of this conspiracy unless he had the sort of role that I have sought to describe.
"Extreme religious and ideological material recovered on his computer and other computer media at his home makes it clear that he too believes that violent jihad conducted against the innocent of this country is something which can be justified and is consistent with the extremist political beliefs he clearly holds."
