A teenage asylum-seeker who set off a bomb on a rush hour Tube train is facing life in jail.
Iraqi-born Ahmed Hassan, 18, built a bomb in his bedroom at his foster parents’ home over the summer holidays.
A jury found him guilty of the attempted murder of 93 people, who escaped with their lives when a fireball engulfed a Tube carriage at Parsons Green on 15 September last year.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan said it was “a matter of luck that the device did not function as intended”.
The bomb was made from triacetone triperoxide (TATP), also known as “Mother of Satan”, an extremely volatile homemade explosive.
Experts told the Old Bailey that even a gram of TATP had the potential to cause serious injury. The Parsons Green device contained 400g of the high explosive.
Hassan packed 300g of TATP into Tupperware container and another 100g in a glass vase.
The containers were packed into a white plastic bucket, and carried inside a Lidl bag.
The tub had been packed with 2.2kg of knives, screwdrivers, screws, bolts, nails and other metal items designed to cause “maximum harm and carnage in the surrounding area,” Ms Morgan said.
The District Line train was packed with commuters when the bomb partially detonated at the height of the morning rush.
“The partial explosion caused a large fireball. Some in the carriage were caught by the flames and sustained significant burns, many ran in fear and panic,” Ms Morgan said.
“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 got off the train two minutes before the explosion and switched trains four times on his way to Dover.
He was only caught by chance when a sharp-eyed police officer spotted him sitting outside the passenger terminal at Dover, 24 hours after the attack.
When he was searched, he was carrying £2,320 in cash and claimed to police that he was waiting for a friend.
The teenager arrived in Britain illegally in October 2015, in the back of a lorry from Calais.
He claimed asylum, telling officials that he was in fear of ISIS, who he said had kidnapped him and other youngsters and trained them to kill.
Interviewed by immigration officials on 18 January 2016 at Lunar House in Croydon, Hassan was asked if he had ever had any training with ISIS.
He told the officials: “They trained us on how to kill. It was all religious based.”
However, sources have told Sky News that the teenager, who arrived in Britain two years before his attack, is not thought to have been sent to the UK by the terrorist group.
During his trial, he told the court he had made up the story, because he actually came from a safe area of northern Iraq and feared he would have been refused permission to stay.
He said that he had picked up the story from fellow asylum-seekers at the makeshift camp nicknamed “the jungle” in Calais.
He was referred to the Prevent de-radicalisation programme after disappearing on a trip to Wales eight months after his immigration interview in 2016.
The jury was heard from a former tutor of Hassan, who said he had blamed the West for the death of his parents in Iraq and that it was his duty to hate the British.
The teenager showed no reaction when the jury found him guilty of attempted murder. He will be sentenced at a later date.
From – SkyNews
