The teenage Parsons Green prime suspect made a bucket bomb packed with shrapnel, screws and knives and built it with ingredients bought on Amazon, a court heard yesterday.
Iraqi asylum seeker Ahmed Hassan, 18, allegedly bought ingredients online including from Amazon to make the explosive TATP, known as ‘Mother of Satan’.
Spanish police found traces of a similar explosive at the Alcanar house linked to the Islamist militant cell that used a van to kill 13 people in Barcelona.
There is no known active link between Hassan and the Barcelona terror cell.
Hassan was motivated to unleash murder on the Tube because of his ‘warped political views’, it is alleged.
He entered the country illegally in 2015 and was put in foster care but before the terror attack he had ‘expressed hatred for the UK government and society’, the prosecution said.
Hassan is accused of attempting to murder people travelling on a District Line train last Friday after leaving a homemade bucket bomb by the doors and appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today.
Ahmed Hassan, 18, sketched in the dock today, left a bomb made with ingredients from Amazon at Parsons Green after he ‘expressed hatred for the UK’, a court heard today
The Iraqi asylum seeker is taken from court after being accused of trying to blow up the Tube last week
Ahmed Hassan, 18, is the first suspect to be charged in connection with the Parsons Green Tube terrorist attack last Friday (pictured)
The device failed to properly detonate because it was poorly made, leaving around 30 people with burns, having triggered the explosion using a timer.
Hassan was arrested at the Port of Dover at 7.50am on Saturday, after police spotted him in departures waiting for a ferry to France.
The device, stored in a white tub inside a Lidl bag, contained knives, screws and other items, a court was told.
He allegedly built the device at his home in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, where he lives with foster carers Ron and Penelope Jones.
Hassan got a train from Sunbury-on-Thames to Wimbledon, where he switched and boarded the District line, a court heard. Hassan was arrested the next day at the Port of Dover in Kent, at about 7.50am.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today charged with attempted murder and an explosives offence.
He appeared in court wearing loose-fitting white trousers, a grey prison-issue jumper and black plimsolls.
He had thick dark curly brown hair, was clean shaven and with slight acne, and sat still clasping his hands during the hearing, leaning slightly back in the chair.
When asked for his name, he said it was ‘Ahmed Hassan Mohammad Ali’. He confirmed his date of birth and address as Cavendish Road in Sunbury-on-Thames.
Two dock officers and a policeman sat directly behind him, while two further dock officers sat on the side of the dock.
Penny and Ronald Jones’ property in Surrey, where police believe the suspect made the bomb while in foster care there
In the week since the attack, six people have been picked up by police across Britain
Outlining the case, he said: ‘Extensive CCTV coverage was identified by the police, spanning a period in the hours before and after an explosive device went off on the District line train at Parsons Green underground station at 8.20 on the 15th of September last week.
‘And they show the suspect carrying the device, consistent with being the IED, in a bag from his home address to the train, onto which it was placed before he got off, leaving it behind to explode.
‘Items were then found in searches at his home address consistent with him having constructed that device at that address.’
He continued: ‘Police obtained and recovered CCTV, it must be said, surprisingly quickly, leading to images of the suspect to be circulated amongst police staff in a matter of hours, resulting in his arrest.
‘They identified the suspect carrying the large bag in the hours before the explosion at 8.20, towards Sunbury-on-Thames station, and then on an overground train to Wimbledon.
‘And then on to Wimbledon underground station, before getting on the District line.’
Mr Ingham said: ‘The explosion created a fireball which injured 30 people. Including a lady with more serious burns.
‘Chemical analysis has identified the high explosive TATP. That is an improvised – in other words, home made – explosive.
‘In this case there were many hundreds of grams of TATP in the device. There had been a partial explosion at the scene.’
The items recovered included several hundreds of grams of TATP, an electronic timer, and several containers, the court heard.
Mr Ingham continued: ‘The device also contained metal shrapnel, including knives, screws and other items.
‘The device appears in fact not to have functioned as intended. That’s probably down to an incorrect construction. Initial examinations of digital devices show the suspect had purchased all the key ingredients for manufacturing TATP from internet sources, including Amazon.’
The prosecutor told the court a witness who had been mentored Hassan had been spoken to.
He said: ‘She indicates during the course of her conversations with him he had told her his parents had been killed in Iraq, and he was worrying about being sent back to Iraq, having claimed asylum in this country, and having expressed hatred for the UK government and society.
‘It is the Crown’s case he intended to kill innocent people because of this warped view.’
No application for bail was made by his lawyer, Emma Lambie.
District Judge Tan Ikram remanded Hassan in custody. He will appear at the Old Bailey on October 13.
A Syrian refugee arrested over the Parsons Green Tube terror attack was last night released without charge – and a 17-year-old held in Thornton Heath was also released.
Syrian refugee Yahya Faroukh (pictured left and right), 21, has been released without charge overnight
The family of Yahyah Farroukh, 21, had denied his involvement in the attempted London Underground bombing, insisting he ‘loved’ Britain.
Scotland Yard said the student would face no further action – six days after his arrest outside the fried chicken takeaway where he worked in West London.
After his arrest on Saturday, his sister said: ‘Yahyah is innocent, we know he is. He could never hurt a fly. Why would he hurt the family that adopted him or the country that welcomed him?’
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old boy living in a ‘halfway house’ for asylum seekers and ‘troubled’ teenagers yesterday became the sixth suspect to be held over last Friday’s potentially catastrophic bombing.
He was arrested in a midnight raid on a property in Thornton Heath, South London.
Scotland Yard said: ‘A 17-year-old arrested by officers investigating the terrorist attack at Parsons Green tube station has been released from police custody with no further action today, Friday, September 22.’
Counter-terror police were last night still holding an 18-year-old man arrested at the Port of Dover the day after the failed attack.
The refugee, understood to be the suspected bomber, is believed, along with Mr Farroukh, to have spent time in foster care with Penelope and Ronald Jones, aged 71 and 88 respectively, who previously received MBEs for services to children and families.
The investigation into the rush hour bombing, which injured 30 people, has also seen three men aged 25, 30 and 48, detained in Newport, South Wales.
A 25-year-old man has been detained in Newport, Wales, in connection with the terror attack, Scotland Yard said
The Met Police described the terror probe as ‘fast-moving’, but said searches would take time
The 17-year-old suspect was held yesterday after around 20 police officers stormed the end-of-terrace house shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
Forensic officers spent the day searching the five-bedroom property. Wheelie bins were emptied and searched, while the overgrown back garden combed for clues.
Neighbour Pamela Emanuel, 54, said police visit the house frequently – ‘at least every other week’ – and that the current group of ‘young foreign teenagers’ have lived there for no more than six months.
She said she believed the house, thought to be worth around £500,000, was used for people with a question mark over their immigration status, and described the group as ‘unsupervised’.
The latest arrest came as searches continued at two addresses in Newport, while police said ongoing searches of houses in Sunbury-on-Thames and Stanwell in Surrey are expected to ‘last some days’.
Commander Dean Haydon, head of Scotland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command, said: ‘This continues to be a fast-moving investigation. A significant amount of activity has taken place since the attack on Friday.’
Meanwhile friends of the third man arrested over the Parsons Green bombing said they ‘can’t believe’ he would be involved.
The 25-year-old, named locally as Bilal, was arrested in Glebe Street, Newport, South Wales, at 7pm on Tuesday.
One friend said the Iranian Kurd arrived in Newport in around 2009, adding: ‘He is a very good guy, I can’t believe this. He is Kurdish, he describes terrorists like Isis as stupid.’
Neighbours of two of the houses raided say they were used as temporary accommodation. Police remain at the scene of a house in south London where a 17-year-old was detained
Part-time model Sully Ali, 19, said he saw the painter and decorator being arrested, adding: ‘He smiled at me from the back of the police car.’
The home-made bomb which injured 30 when it partially detonated at Parsons Green last week contained a ‘large quantity of explosive’ and was ‘packed with shrapnel’, the head of Scotland Yard has revealed.
Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, said the device left on the tube train was ‘very, very dangerous’ and the carnage ‘could have been so much worse’.
She also revealed that, as well as the five terror attacks which have taken place in the UK this year, police have foiled six further attacks in the last few months.
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