‘Veteran of Taliban in Parliament knives plot’
A TALIBAN veteran returned home to launch a deadly knife attack at the “very heart” of British democracy, a court heard yesterday.
Khalid Ali, 28, was planning to stab police officers, soldiers or politicians when he was seized close to the Houses of Parliament on April 27 last year, jurors were told.
The spot was only yards away from where a terrorist had mowed down pedestrians and hacked a policeman to death just four weeks earlier, the Old Bailey heard.
Ali was armed with three knives, said Brian Altman, QC, prosecuting. Two were found in the right and left hand pockets of his jacket.
The longest was stuffed down the waistband of his tracksuit trousers, he told the jury.
“The defendant went armed with those three knives for one reason and one reason only – to launch a deadly terror attack to strike at the very heart of this country’s democracy by killing a police officer, a member of the military or even a parliamentarian,” Mr Altman said.
“Who exactly, or how many people he intended to kill, is nothing the prosecution has to prove. Chillingly, but for the interception of the defendant by the police, he would, say the prosecution, have carried out yet another murderous terror attack in Westminster.”
Ali allegedly left his home and family in the UK in 2011 and joined the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting British forces.
After his arrest, he told police he was loyal to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
FBI officers had allegedly found his fingerprints on components of bombs in two large caches uncovered in January and July 2012, the Old Bailey heard.
Mr Altman said: “In his interviews, not only did he admit this, but also at one stage admitted to detonating devices maybe more than 300 times, although he later backtracked on this.”
Ali returned to Britain in November 2016 and by March last year had begun planning his attack, jurors were told.
Questioned by Scotland Yard, Ali said he wanted to send a three-part message to Britain’s leaders, Mr Altman said.
His message was that the West should leave the Muslim lands, that Palestine should be returned and that the West should release its prisoners of war.
Mr Altman said: “He claimed that he was armed with not one, but three knives – not to use them offensively, but for his own protection.
“You may want to ask yourselves why he needed any knives for his own protection at all.
“His three-part message, if he was being truthful about the terms of it, was to be delivered by the use of those three knives offensively.”
Security footage showed Ali travelling from Ealing through Victoria to Westminster where Khalid Masood, 33, had mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a policeman to death just four weeks earlier.
Ali, of Edmonton, north London, denies preparing an act of terrorism.
He also denies possessing explosives with intent to endanger life in Afghanistan in 2012.
The trial continues.