The jury in the trial of seven men accused of plotting a bomb campaign in the UK has heard of a plan to hijack and crash a British Airways plane. The alleged plot was heard in a bugged conversation recorded by the security service, MI5, and played to jurors. A voice says: "The beauty is they don't have to fly into a building, just crash the flipping thing." Prosecutors say Omar Khyam was speaking to Jawad Akbar. The men and five others deny conspiring to cause explosions.
The voice said to be Mr Khyam's discusses a plot to use 30 "brothers" prepared to commit suicide on a British Airways plane.
Plans to attack electricity, gas and water supplies are also discussed in the conversation, which the Old Bailey jurors were told had been recorded in Mr Akbar's flat in Uxbridge, west of London.
The voice, said to be Mr Khyam's, says: "Imagine you've got a plane, 300 people in it, you buy tickets for 30 brothers in there. They're massive brothers, you just crash the plane. You could do it easy." The voice said to be Mr Akbar's then says: "To find 30 brothers willing to commit suicide is a big thing."
Describing the plot as a "good idea" the first voice then adds: "If you spoke to some serious brothers, to the right people, you'd probably get it, bro'... whether they were from abroad, you'd get it. Thirty brothers on a British Airways flight... as soon as an air marshal gets up and shoots one the others just jump him."
The defendants were arrested on 30 March, 2004, after fertiliser was found stored in a west London depot. Mr Akbar, 22, Mr Khyam, 24, and his brother Shujah Mahmood, 19, and Waheed Mahmood, 34, all of Crawley, west Sussex, Salahuddin Amin, 31, of Luton, Beds, Anthony Garcia, 23, of Ilford, east London, and Nabeel Hussain, 21, of Horley, Surrey, are accused of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between 1 January, 2003 and 31 March, 2004.
Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain also deny a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing 600kg (1,300lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism. Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood further deny possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.