Stockholm bombings: Trial hears of explosion then intestines spread all over street

A MAN who was living in Scotland has gone on trial accused of being part of a terrorist conspiracy to set off a bomb in Sweden.

• Nasserdine Menni accused of conspiring with Taimour Abdulwahab over 2010 bombings

• Abdulwahab was killed in the Stockholm blast

• Swedish police officer describes day device was detonated

Taimour Abdulwahab died after he detonated an improvised explosive device in Stockholm on 11 December, 2010, having earlier set fire to a car containing an improvised explosive device to try to detonate it.

Nasserdine Menni, whose age is not known, is accused of conspiring with Abdulwahab and others to further terrorist aims by criminal and other means, including the use of explosive devices in the commission of an act of terrorism directed against members of the public in Sweden, with intent to murder members of the public.

It is alleged he did so in Glasgow and other places throughout the UK and abroad, including Luton, Bedford, Sweden, Syria, Iraq and other unknown locations between 1 January, 2003 and 8 March, 2011.

At the opening day of Menni’s trial at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, a Swedish police officer described the moment he found a man’s body with “the instestines outside” lying in a busy street in the Swedish capital during the festive period in 2010.

Witness Karl Viktor Andersson, a sergeant with Stockholm County Police, recalled the events of 11 December that year, when he was called to a report of a car fire at around 5pm, but was soon diverted to another incident.

He and a colleague made their way to the junction of Bryggargargatan with Brottninggatan in Stockholm city centre, where outside the Scorett shoe shop, they encountered a man’s body.

He told the court: “We just passed the corner and there was a body lying there on his back with his intestines outside his body.

“At first we thought it might have been someone who had been shovelling snow on a roof who had fallen off.”

He added: “When I saw the body, it looked like it was still alive. I could see breath in the air.”

Sgt Andersson, a serving officer for four years, went further down the street to seal it off, then noticed damaged buildings when he turned round.

He said: “When I turned around and looked back that was when I first saw the damage to the two shops on either side of the body.

“At the foot end the wall had taken a big hit and at the body’s head end the window of the shop was entirely white because of the blast. On the snow on the ground you could see a star pattern coming out from the body.

“At that point I decided to clear the area and send members of the public around the body away because it could be an explosive and it might not be safe to be near.”

The man’s hand was also badly injured, he said. Sgt Andersson told the court that as he first approached the scene four or five members of the public were near the body, who said they were off-duty medical professionals.

Menni is also charged with transferring sums of money to or for the use of Abdulwahab by unknown means, between January 2005 and December 2010, in the knowledge or with reasonable cause to suspect that they would or may be used for the purposes of terrorism. He pleads not guilty to the charges.

The trial before Lord Matthews, continues.