Trial Opens in London Transit Bombing Plot

'Good Fortune' Spared Travelers Two Weeks After Attacks That Killed 52, Jury Is Told

LONDON, Jan. 15 -- The London transit system escaped a repeat of the devastating suicide bombings of July 7, 2005, only through "good fortune," possibly hot summer weather or the faulty mixing of an explosive compound, a London jury was told Monday at the start of the trial of six men accused in the follow-on plot.

Two weeks after the fatal attacks, three subway trains and a bus were boarded by four men carrying backpacks that concealed bombs made from hydrogen peroxide, flour and other chemicals in a one-bedroom apartment, prosecutors said. In each case, the detonators went off but failed to set off the bombs' main charges, they said.

Opening the long-awaited trial of the four men and two others accused in the plot, prosecutor Nigel Sweeney disclosed extensive findings of an intense investigation that has proceeded under strict secrecy for the last 18 months.

"It was simply the good fortune of the traveling public that this day they were spared," perhaps because the bombs were made improperly or the hot weather affected the chemicals, he said in the heavily guarded Woolwich Crown Court. He told jurors that the defendants were part of an "extremist Muslim plot" to carry out "murderous suicide bombings."

Five of the defendants had been under police surveillance during a camping trip 15 months before the attempted attack, according to Sweeney, who did not elaborate on why police were watching them. One attempted to escape wearing a Muslim woman's burqa.

The six men, all of them London residents originally from Africa, have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder. One of them reportedly said at the time of his arrest that the devices were not intended to explode, merely to make a political statement.

The bomb incidents in the summer of 2005 were the first major acts of religious extremist violence in Britain since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Most of the July 7 bombers, who killed themselves and 52 passengers, and the July 21 suspects were British citizens or residents who had apparently been radicalized in Britain.

The July 21 incident roiled a city only just recovering from the loss of the 52. Adding to the horror was that the second attack seemed modeled precisely on the first, targeting three subway trains and a bus. Only this time, passengers heard only loud popping sounds as the detonators went off, then saw the would-be bombers dashing out the car doors.

Police staged a massive manhunt for the suspects, one of whom managed to slip out of the country but was captured in Rome.

In the courtroom Monday, five of the defendants wore dark business suits, while the sixth wore dark pants and a black sweater. They watched with little apparent emotion from behind plexiglas flanked by 10 police officers in the packed courtroom.

Because all four July 7 bombers died, the July 21 defendants are the first to face trial over incidents that continue to create public apprehension.

Swearing in the jury Friday, Judge Adrian Fulford cautioned the nine women and three men that they must consider only the evidence and remain "wholly unaffected by any feelings of apprehension that you might have had in 2005."

The defendants are Muktar Said Ibrahim, Manfo Asiedu, Hussain Osman, Yassin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Adel Yahya. Yahya allegedly was involved in the planning of attacks but was out of the country on July 21. He was arrested at London's Gatwick Airport on his return from Ethiopia in December 2005.

The trial is expected to last three or four months. Eleven other people charged with assisting them, or failing to notify police of their intentions, face trial later this year.

In court Monday, Sweeney said that Osman, who fled to Rome and was arrested a week later, told police that the plot was not a serious attempt to kill, but rather "a hoax in order to make a political point."

"Given the weight of the evidence as to his involvement, what could he say?" Sweeney said, adding that the hoax defense was undermined by the fact that Mohammed had written a suicide note found by police. "This was no hoax," Sweeney said.

Sweeney told the jury that although the July 21 plot closely resembled the July 7 bombings, it was "plainly not some hastily arranged copycat." Sweeney said evidence collected by police shows that the defendants bought components for the bombs in April, well before the July 7 attack.

Police have never publicly said the two attacks were linked, and Sweeney did not suggest any link Monday.

Sweeny also said that Ibrahim had "been trained for jihad" in 2003 in Sudan, where he practiced firing rocket-propelled grenades, and in 2004 traveled to Pakistan "to take part in jihad or to train for it." Prosecutors will present evidence that most of the defendants "held extremist views" and had "spoken about carrying out jihad."

Police also discovered a wide variety of video footage, showing beheadings and other extremist violence, at apartments used by the defendants. Sweeney said Omar, Yahya and Ibrahim attended the Finsbury Park mosque in north London to hear sermons by Abu Hamza Masri, a radical cleric convicted last year of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred. He said Omar and Ibrahim had tapes of Masri's speeches.

Sweeney devoted much of his opening statement to explaining the chemical makeup of the bombs. Omar's one-bedroom London apartment was used as a "bomb factory" where the defendants boiled at least 284 bottles of hydrogen peroxide to create a more concentrated mixture. He said that was then mixed with the flour in 1.6-gallon plastic tubs that were surrounded with nuts, screws, tacks and other metal taped to the package to act as shrapnel. He held up a replica for the jurors to see.

Sweeney said the detonator was several grams of triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, which can be mixed using commonly available ingredients. Richard C. Reid, the British citizen who tried to blow up an American jetliner in December 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, also had a TATP detonator.

Sweeney said the TATP was placed inside a modified flashlight bulb. He said the device was designed to explode when two small wires attached to the bulb were connected to a nine-volt battery. But while the detonators worked as planned, they failed to detonate the main charge.

Sweeney told the jurors that Mohammed, Omar and Osman carried bombs in backpacks onto three subway trains, while Ibrahim carried his onto a bus. He said Asiedu was supposed to be the fifth bomber but "lost his nerve at the last minute" and dumped his bomb in a London park, where it was found two days later.