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Bomb plot accused 'had 9/11 images'
Pictures of the ruined World Trade Center and the burning wreckage of the Pentagon were among 49,000 images found on the computer of one of the men accused of helping the July 7 bombers plan their attack, a court heard yesterday.
The photos were discovered on the hard drive of a computer belonging to Waheed Ali who is accused of accompanying two bombers on a reconnaissance trip to London.
A jury at Kingston Crown Court were yesterday shown a number of recovered images which included pictures of Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the banners of a number of websites.
Ali, 24, from Tower Hamlets, east London, is standing trial with Sadeer Saleem, 27, and Mohammed Shakil, 31, both from Beeston, Leeds, accused of conspiring with Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shezhad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain and others unknown to cause explosions between November 17 2004 and July 8 2005.
The four suicide bombersmurdered 52 people whenthey set off bombs on the capital's transport network in2005. The defendants deny the charge.
All three are alleged to have carried out a two-day reconnaissance mission in the capital on December 16 and 17 2004 with bombers Hussain and Lindsay.
They are accused of pinpointing potential targets and the court has heard they visited the Natural History Museum, the London Eye and the London Aquarium.
The jury was told today that a total of 49,092 thumbnail images, including pornographic material and advertisements were recovered from Ali's computer when it was seized from an address in Leeds.
Among them were banners from websites including "Prominent Martyrs of Iraq" and "Jihad Unspun".
One image contained pictures of the flattened twin towers, an aircraft about to strike one of the buildings and the Statue of Liberty with the words "Knowledge is for acting upon".
Other images included military vehicles, Middle Eastern soldiers and public gatherings.
One picture showed a man wearing a headscarf carrying a weapon. In another, a close up of the same man's face, he appears to be dead.
Statements from two Muslims living in the Beeston area of Leeds describing what they knew about the four bombers and the defendants had earlier been read to the court.
Shabaz Fazal said he was involved in the running of the Iqra bookshop of which all three defendants regularly attended.
But he said in his statement that he ended his involvement because he was not happy that books were not being properly "vetted" to ensure they were not "extreme in their content".
He said he knew Edgware Road bomber Khan as "Sid" who became involved in the bookshop and ran a gym.
He said he had known Shakil for a number of years and used to see him out clubbing in the early 1990s. But he said he saw a change in him after he started attending the bookshop and he became "more religious".
He said he also knew Saleem and Ali when they also became regular attendees.
He said: "The group were all friends and you would almost describe them as a brotherhood."
The court heard that Ali's computer had also been used to search for information on a number of topics including "jihad" and "news on the Taliban".
Using the Google site, search terms entered included "Jihad Unspun", "Islamic human rights", "jihad nasheed" –
translated as a song without instruments – and attempts were made to search for Guantanamo.
There was also a search for Sheikh Faisal – the extremist cleric who was jailed for inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder in 2003. He was deported back to his native Jamaica from the UK last year.
The trial continues.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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