Calm trip to shops before bombers' deadly mission

CHILLING CCTV images showing the 7/7 bombers buying the final supplies for their deadly mission have been shown at the inquest into the deaths those killed in the attacks which also heard evidence of possible accomplices who are yet to be traced.

Grainy and jerky video footage showed the men buying items at stores in Leeds, carrying out a reconnaissance trip to London and setting out on their final journey.

The inquest heard how Scotland Yard launched a massive trawl of thousands of hours of CCTV images after the 2005 bombings on London's transport network, which killed 52 innocent people and injured more than 700.

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They Leeds trio purchased pliers and light bulbs at a B&Q hardware store and made an early-morning visit to an Asda supermarket for bags of ice to keep their homemade bombs cool.

Plot ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan was also filmed visiting Dewsbury Hospital in West Yorkshire with his heavily pregnant partner, Hasina Patel, two days before the attacks. She was having complications with the pregnancy and suffered a miscarriage on the day of the bombings.

Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, and Hasib Hussain, 18, visited the B&Q store in Beeston Road, Leeds, on July 4.

The men are seen arriving in the blue Nissan Micra hire car – rented by Tanweer from July 4 to 8 – which would be used to transport them from Leeds to Luton to meet Jermaine Lindsay, who grew up in Huddersfield, on the morning of the attacks.

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After parking the vehicle, they enter the store at about 1.50pm and Khan goes over to the returns desk with an item in his hand.

The three men then walk up the aisles looking for the products they need before paying for them and leaving.

A B&Q receipt found at Khan's Dewsbury home after the bombings, showed he bought three sets of pliers and two 50-watt bulbs.

The inquests have already heard that an improvised explosives detonator made from a light bulb was discovered at the terrorists' bomb factory in Leeds.

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The next day, Khan and Ms Patel were caught on camera arriving at Dewsbury Hospital in the same blue Nissan Micra.

Khan and Tanweer were also filmed shopping at the Asda superstore in Pudsey, Leeds, the day before the bombings.

Arriving in the Nissan Micra at about 5.20am, they select a trolley and Khan leads the way to the freezer section as staff restock shelves.

A receipt later found at Edgware Road Tube station, where Khan detonated his device, shows he bought 15 bags of ice that morning.

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The inquests have been told the bombers used ice packs to keep their homemade explosives cool while they travelled to London.

Witnesses described the stages of the bombers' journeys to London on the morning of July 7.

Leeds grandmother Sylvia Waugh said one of the men glared at her as she watched them setting off from Alexandra Grove, Leeds, at just after 4am.

She was woken by voices outside her bedroom window and pulled aside her net curtains to see them loading what she believed were rucksacks full of drugs into a car.

As she watched, suddenly one of the men glared back at her.

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"I knew he had seen me and he frightened me, and that's when I got up out of bed," she told the hearing. "My partner went into the room and he told me, 'That's what you get for being nosey looking out of the window'."

Mrs Waugh said she saw "at least six" men putting the bags into two cars, one blue and the other white, outside the property between 4.05am and 4.10am on July 7.

Shown pictures of the four men who carried out the 7/7 attacks, she said she saw all of them at the Alexandra Grove bomb factory apart from Hasib Hussain, and she identified the man who looked at her as Jermaine Lindsay.

Police investigated the mystery white car but have been unable to find any trace of it.

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Khan, Tanweer and Hussain drove out of Leeds and onto the M1 in the rented Nissan Micra. At around 5am Tanweer stopped at Woodall services, where he filled up the car and bought three cheese and onion slices, a packet of crisps and two lemon-flavoured water drinks.

Commuter Susan Clarke said she was not taken seriously when she tried to raise the alarm after seeing the four in Luton station car park.

Following the bombings she tried to pass her concerns on to a parking attendant but he treated her as a "fussy old woman", the inquest heard.

Paul Gransby, a project designer for a construction company, told how an "aggressive" Hussain crashed straight into him at King's Cross station.

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Four days after the attacks, a police officer with a military background spotted the bombers on film, wearing large rucksacks and walking two-by-two through King's Cross station in central London.

The final image of the four bombers together at King's Cross before they split up to travel to their targets was also the first to be recovered by police, the hearing was told.

The hearing continues.

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