Student who found recipe for Tube bomb on Google
TUBe terrorist Damon Smith faces years in jail after building a deadly bomb ‘under the nose’ of his mother.
A jury yesterday convicted the student of trying to bring carnage to the London Underground.
The 20-year-old autistic loner followed an Al Qaeda manual to make a ball-bearing bomb using sparklers, a £2 wall clock and a metal flask.
But after being tracked down by police within 24 hours of the failed detonation he claimed his actions were merely a ‘prank’.
Last night relatives accused his mother Antonitza, 48, of turning a blind eye to his obsession with militant Islam, bombs and guns.
As counter-terror police warned Smith was ‘incredibly dangerous’, it can be revealed that:
÷Passengers escaped death only because of a ‘temperamental’ bomb recipe found with a Google search;
÷The bomber did a ‘ dry run’ the day before and left a prototype bomb in his grandparents’ loft;
÷He joked about being ‘beheaded by Jihadi John’ on a trip to Tunisia;
÷Smith was caught on camera with Cardiff hate preacher Sajid Idris, who was once arrested on suspicion of supporting Islamic State.
The student was convicted of explosives offences after an Old Bailey trial in which he refused to give evidence. The jury heard that within weeks of joining London Metropolitan University he left the rucksack bomb on a Jubilee Line service at London Bridge.
The bag was mistaken for lost property and handed to the driver who realised the nature of its contents at North Greenwich station.
The discovery triggered a major bomb alert, a nationwide manhunt and a multi-million-pound criminal inquiry. experts found the device partially detonated, but the initial charge was not enough to set off the main explosive.
Meanwhile, Smith changed his clothes in a branch of Starbucks and returned to his lectures.
The next day, he was arrested by undercover officers who Tasered him. Investigators found he was highly intelligent and was bullied for his squeaky voice and habit of smiling inappropriately when nervous. His mother had swapped their home in Newton Abbot, Devon, for a Bermondsey council house to further his studies. But in London his fascination with militant Islam and bombs became a reality.
Police uncovered a bedroom bomb factory with enough parts to construct several more devices. He kept a combat knife in a bedside drawer and used sparklers to create an explosive powder.
Computer experts have since unravelled Smith’s online fantasy life in which he boasted of his prowess in martial arts and posed with guns. Police suspect his mother not only knew about his obsession but ‘humoured and normalised it’.
The pair travelled to Tunisia in April 2015 to explore Islamic culture. But instead the teenager made jokes about IS killer Jihadi John while a man held a knife to his throat, before Smith posed with a gun.
relatives said Smith was warped by his mother’s indulgence. Her half-brother Paul Antoniou, 52, said: ‘She cannot bring herself to believe he has done anything wrong … Nitza was far too soft with him and he controlled her from an early age.’
Judge richard Marks remanded Smith in Belmarsh Prison. He will be sentenced later this month.
The ease with which he accessed inflammatory material online will fuel calls for internet companies to take responsibility for their content. His mother last night called for YouTube to be ‘ banned’ as she claimed the website played a key role in radicalising her son.
‘How to make a bomb – that shouldn’t be on YouTube because people copy, especially vulnerable people,’ Mrs Smith told the Daily Telegraph. ‘It’s wrong.
‘The Government should ban it … it might save another child from what my son has gone through.’
‘Fascination with militant Islam’