Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Ahmed Hassan Mohammed Ali appearing via video-link at the Old Bailey
The Parsons Green bucket bomber loaded an explosive device with more than 4lbs of nails, screws and knives to cause ‘maximum carnage’ on a rush hour Tube train, a court heard.
Iraqi asylum seeker Ahmed Hassan, 18, injured 30 commuters after detonating the device in the packed District Line carriage, the Old Bailey in London heard.
Hassan allegedly made the bomb using the explosive triacetate triperoxide (TATP) which was packed into a Tupperware container and glass vase inside the white bucket.
The device exploded in a ball of fire as the train pulled into Parsons Green station at 8.20am on September 15 last year, leaving passengers badly burned.
Fortunately, the device did not detonate fully, sparing the lives of those nearest the bomb.
‘Some in the carriage were caught by the flames and sustained significant burns,’ said prosecutor Alison Morgan.
‘Many ran in fear and panic. They were fortunate. Had the device fully detonated it is inevitable that serious injury and significant damage would have been caused within the carriage.
‘Those in close proximity to the device may well have been killed.’
Hassan set a crude timing device and got off the train at Putney Bridge station, the stop before Parsons Green.
The bucket was inside a Lidl carrier bag and been packed with assorted objects including sockets, screw drivers and bolts.
‘The bucket containing the device had been loaded with pieces of shrapnel, that is, metal objects designed to be propelled out of the device during the explosion, causing maximum harm and carnage to those in the surrounding area,’ Miss Morgan said.
The device exploded in a ball of fire as the train pulled into Parsons Green station at 8.20am on September 15 last year, leaving passengers badly burned
Police remove the ‘ring of steel’ barriers surrounding the house in Sunbury, West London where the Parson’s Green terror suspect was living
Hassan had arrived in the UK in the back of a lorry in October 2015 when he was 16 after he was smuggled through the Channel Tunnel without any identity papers.
His asylum claim was pending and he was living with foster parents Penelope Jones, 71, and her husband Ronald, 88, at the time of the attack.
The couple were awarded MBEs in recognition of their services to children and families in 2009.
Hassan, from 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.
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