Glasgow Airport bomb trial: Alleged bomber's message read out to court

Published on Monday 13 October 2008 15:10

A terrorist plotter said he planned to "start experiments sometime soon" just months before car bomb attacks took place in London and Glasgow, a court heard today.

Indian engineering student Kafeel Ahmed, 28, used an internet message service to hold conversations with an alleged conspirator, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

In one conversation recovered from a laptop by police, he told Bilal Abdulla: "Bro, inshallah

God willing, I think we are gonna start experiments sometime soon."

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC showed the jury a transcript that revealed Abdulla replied: "Oh cool" before adding a smiley face symbol.

During the conversation in February 2007 Ahmed continued: "Lol

laugh out loud]. Probably in a week or so we will have a meeting," the jury was told.

Ahmed, using the online name Kingkaf, added the pair needed to "establish the plan ... and timetable", transcripts shown to the jury revealed.

The student died from critical burns suffered after he drove a Jeep packed with gas canisters and petrol into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport on June 30 last year.

Abdulla, 29, who was a passenger in the car, is on trial accused of conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions alongside a third man, Mohammed Asha, 28. They deny the offences.

The prosecution claim Abdulla and Ahmed drove two similar car bombs from Scotland to London's West End but mobile phone detonators failed to work in the early hours of June 29.

Asha is accused of working behind the scenes to support the terrorist conspiracy, providing advice and cash to pay for some of the equipment.

Both men worked as doctors in NHS hospitals, including the University Hospital of North Staffordshire and the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley.

Mr Laidlaw today began to outline evidence of telephone conversations and meetings between Abdulla and Asha in the months before the attacks.

He said Asha gave a new Nokia telephone to Abdulla during a meeting in Preston on February 26, 2007, just hours after the internet conversation took place.

Abdulla spent that night at Asha's home in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and the two men met again several days later in Manchester, the court heard.