An FBI informer with al-Qaida links told the Old Bailey yesterday how he met a group of about 15 to 20 young men of Pakistani descent - mostly British and mainly from London and Crawley, West Sussex - in Afghanistan who he said had "come for the jihad".
Mohammed Junaid Babar, 31, who has pleaded guilty in a US court to being part of a British bomb plot, has been flown from the United States to give evidence against seven British men accused of conspiring to carry out a terrorist campaign in the UK. He arrived at court amid heavy security, driven from a police station in an armoured convoy with a helicopter overhead.
Babar, a Pakistani-born US citizen who has been given immunity from prosecution in the UK, told the court how days after 9/11 he flew to Afghanistan to fight against the Americans, even though his mother had been caught up in the World Trade Centre attack. She escaped from the first of the twin towers - where she worked - when it was hit by suicide bombers.
He travelled first to London, where he stayed for three or four days, and then on to Pakistan, where he met the group of young men. In court he gave a list of names of those he met in Pakistan which were similar to a list of aliases allegedly used by the defendants given by David Waters QC, prosecuting, in his opening speech.
Omar Khyam, 24, his brother, Shujah Mahmood, 18, Jawad Akbar, 22, and Waheed Mahmood, 33, all from Crawley, Anthony Garcia, 27, from Ilford, Essex, Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley, Surrey, and Salahuddin Amin, 30, from Luton, Bedfordshire, all deny conspiracy to cause explosions in the UK.
Khyam, Garcia and Hussain also deny possessing 600kg (94st) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorist purposes, while Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny having aluminium powder, which can also be used to make bombs. On Wednesday, the court heard that a central London nightclub and the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent were among potential targets.
The case continues