The wife of an Islamic religious leader actively encouraged him to become a terrorist, a court heard yesterday. Bouchra El-Hor, 24, even told him she hoped their baby son would follow him into "martyrdom", the Old Bailey was told. She and her husband, 28-year-old Yassin Nassari, were arrested after they flew into the UK allegedly carrying blueprints for missiles and bombs to be used against the West. The instructions included how to built the long-range Al Qassam rockets used by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. There was also a chilling library of extreme Islamic documents, jurors heard.
Prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee said: "It is the prosecution's case that they are not merely radicalised Muslims but that Nassari was going to engage in what he and others like him would call a 'jihad', but what the law describes as terrorism. He possessed both the ideology and the technology with which that could be achieved, either by him or other like-minded people.
"His wife was not only aware of his intention, but positively encouraged it - despite that fact that his actions would almost certainly result in his death and in their son being without a father. These are mindsets which are beyond ordinary understanding and which possess a chilling resilience."
British-born Nassari and his Dutch wife, who have a home in Ealing, West London, were stopped after they arrived at Luton airport on an easyJet flight from Amsterdam in May last year. A hard drive belonging to Nassari was seized and police found it contained detailed instructions to build the rockets and explosives. Video footage of beheadings, suicide bombs and executions was also found on the hard drive, along with articles entitled "Virtues of martyrdom in the path of Allah," and "Islamic Ruling on the Permissibility of Self-Sacrificial Operation - Suicide or Martyrdom?"
Nassari had material on fitness training, martial arts and hand to hand combat, said Mr Jafferjee. The prosecutor added: "He was clearly going either to create or to enter a conflict zone. The technology was in place, the ideology was in place."
Nassari married El-Hor in March 2005. Shortly afterwards they moved to Syria, where he worked as an English teacher and clothing supplier. His wife returned to the Netherlands in November 2005 to have their first child and Nassari joined her on April 30.
The court heard that before he returned from Syria, El-Hor wrote her husband a letter praising his efforts to become a Jihadi martyr and offering to send their baby son to the frontline so he could "follow in his father's footsteps." In the letter, found by police when the couple were detained at Luton, she wrote: "The moment has come where you and I have to separate for the cause of Allah.
"I am so proud, my husband, and I am happy for you that Allah had granted you this chance to be a Mujihad in the cause of God. I really wish I could go with you because I too feel obliged to do all this and look to participate in any way I can.
"God willing, I will do anything in my power to raise our son the best way I can so he can be a righteous Muslim. I will also tell him all about his father so he can be proud of him and follow in his footsteps."
The jury was shown a series of pictures and diagrams from Nassari's computer which gave detailed instructions on how to build a rocket. They even included the suggestion that the fuselage could be made from Peugeot driveshafts obtained from breakers' yards if good quality stainless steel was not available.
Nassari denies possessing an article for the purposes of terrorism and possession of a document of record likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. El-Hor denies failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. The trial continues today.