Bucket bomber ‘was on a mission to kill’

A teenage asylum seeker who detonated a bucket bomb on a crowded rush hour Tube train wanted to cause ‘death and damage and then make his escape’, a court heard today (weds).

Ahmed Hassan, 18, injured 30 commuters after detonating the device loaded with nails, screws and knives, causing the packed District Line carriage to erupt in a ‘fireball’, the Old Bailey has heard.

The bomb exploded as the train pulled into Parsons Green station shortly before 8.20am on 15 September last year, leaving several passengers severely burned.

Hassan, who made the explosive triperoxide (TATP) using ingredients bought from Amazon.com, entered the UK illegally on the back of a lorry in 2015.

In her closing speech to the jury, Alison Morgan, QC, prosecuting, said: ‘Mr Hassan has told you that at school he was very clever that he excelled in his studies that he won Student of the Year six years running at his school in Iraq and then within a year of starting at Brooklands College he was student of the year there too.

‘He is, you may think, a clever person who knew exactly what he was doing – a person who carefully researched, planned and executed an attack which he intended to be deadly.

‘A person whose planning and presence belies the 18 years of age that he says that he is.

‘He believes he can escape culpability for these offences by suggesting to you that all he intended was what happened.

‘What a finely balanced intention that must have been – to use, to create TATP to cause just a fire, just a fire to deflagrate but not to explode.

‘”O State of Islam, attack the creed of the kuffar and crush the soldiers gang send torrents of terror.

‘”Break the shackles, wage a battle that will make a child’s hair go grey, scorch the bodies with a blazing fire, a sight never imagined before.”

‘Those aren’t my words, those are the words from one of the nasheeds that Mr Hassan had on his memory stick.

‘He did manage to scorch the bodies with a blazing fire.

‘It may well be that if Mr Hassan had pushed that bulb a little further down into the TATP in the blue vase he would have achieved the deadly consequences he intended.

‘He would have it that he was just playing out a fantasy from films that he had seen.

‘When I asked him why he did this at all I think his answer was to draw attention to himself because he was bored.

‘These are pretty drastic steps to take because you feel bored or want to be the centre of attention.

‘This was a real device using the volatile explosive TATP with a real initiator and real shrapnel inside it.

‘You do not need 400 grams of TATP to play out a fantasy.

‘You do not need 2.2kg of shrapnel to play out a fantasy, unless of course the fantasy you are playing out is a fantasy to kill people as an act of revenge.

‘Whatever story he tells you in the witness box, the fact that he was angry at this country was clear to those who met him.

‘You don’t need TATP to make a fake bomb, you need TATP if your intention is deadly.

‘This was not someone who wanted on that day to be the centre of attentnion, this was someone who wanted to cause death and damage and then make his escape.’

Hassan said he purposefully sabotaged the explosives so they would not fully explode, and he only added the shrapnel to the bucket to make it look ‘serious’.

The teenager had told told the Home Office he was forced to join IS after they threatened to kill his uncle and brother.

But he told the court he never had any contact with IS and said he lied in his Home Office interview so he could stay in the UK.

Hassan said he heard convincing stories that would allow him to remain in the UK during his time in the Calais jungle.

He told his teacher at Brooklands College: ‘It is my duty to hate Britain’ and donated to IS, the court has heard.

He was only 16 when he arrived in the UK illegally in October 2015 and was living with foster parents Penelope Jones, 71, and her husband Ronald, 88, at the time of the attack.

Hassan, of Cavendish Road, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, denies attempted murder and using the explosive substance TATP (triacetate triperoxide) to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.

The trial continues.
ends