An al-Qaeda bomb-maker was carrying three knives when he was arrested just yards from the gates of Downing Street claiming he had a ‘message’ for Britain’s political leaders, a court has heard.
Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 28, was planning to stab police officers and politicians when was intercepted by armed officers just yards from Downing Street on 27 April last year, jurors were told.
A court today heard he allegedly left his family to make bombs for the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2011.
Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 28, (pictured) was planning to stab police officers and politicians when was intercepted by armed officers just yards from Downing Street, jurors were told
After five years, he returned to his home country to deliver a deadly ‘message’ to the government, jurors were told.
When he was arrested by British armed police near Parliament on April 27 last year, he was carrying three knives, the Old Bailey heard.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC told jurors Ali’s potential targets included MPs, police and the military.
He said: ‘On Thursday April 27 last year this defendant, Khalid Ali, was arrested by armed police officers in Whitehall in Westminster.
‘When he was searched he was found to be in the possession of three knives of varying lengths which he had only bought that same day.
‘Two knives were found in right and left pockets of his jacket. The longest was removed from the waistband of the tracksuit trousers he was wearing.
‘The defendant went there armed with three knives for one reason only – to launch a deadly terror attack to strike at the very heart of this country’s democracy by killing a police officer, a member of the military or even a Parliamentarian.
‘Chillingly, but for the interception of the defendant by police, he would have carried out yet another murderous terror attack in Westminster.’
Mr Altman said security cameras had tracked Ali’s route from West Ealing to Ealing Broadway and on to Victoria on the District Line Tube to the most ‘sensitive and iconic’ part of the capital.
He told jurors that just four weeks before, Khalid Masood had driven at pedestrians and stabbed a police officer to death in Westminster.
In his police interview, Ali said he wanted to ‘deliver a message to the leaders and decision-makers of this country’, the court heard.
He called for the West to leave Muslim lands, for Palestine to be returned, and for the West to release prisoners of war, while claiming the knives were for his own protection, Mr Altman said.
The prosecutor said Ali had told police he was loyal to the Taliban and al Qaida.
He allegedly left his home and family in the UK in 2011 and joined the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting British forces.
The American FBI found his fingerprints on components of bombs in two large caches uncovered in January and July 2012, the court heard.
Mr Altman said: ‘In his interviews, not only did he admit this, but also at one stage admitted to detonating devices maybe more than 300 times, although he later backtracked on this.’
Ali returned to Britain in November 2016 and by March last year had begun planning his attack, jurors were told.
On March 18 of last year he joined a Stand up to Racism march from Regent Street through to Whitehall where he ‘showed an interest in the area and the police guarding it’.
The following month, on 22 April, Ali travelled into London where he ‘reconnoitred sensitive areas’ including the MI6 building in Vauxhall Cross as well as Westminster Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall ‘which was the area he chose for his fortunately failed attack some five days later’.
Ali, from Tottenham, north London, denies engaging in preparation for a terrorist act on or before April 27 involving ‘purchasing knives and travelling to London’.
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