Terror trial pair ‘plotted driverless car attack above a chip shop’
‘Soak them in their own blood’
Two Iraqi asylum- seekers planned terror attacks using driverless cars from their bomb factory above a chip shop, a jury heard yesterday.
Andy Star, 32, and Farhad Salah, 23, intended to ‘spare their own lives’ by filling autonomous vehicles with explosives, the prosecution said.
The alleged plot was foiled six days before Christmas last year when police carried out raids on Star’s flat above a chip shop, and the community centre where Salah lived. The men, who are both Iraqi Kurds, were said to be planning the attacks in support of Islamic State. They deny encouraging and preparing for acts of terrorism.
Salah was seeking asylum after arriving in the UK in 2014. Star had been granted it, along with indefinite leave to remain, in 2010. It is not known how they met.
The Mermaid Fish Bar in Chesterfield was the main base for testing explosives, the court was told.
Three air rifles, including one hidden inside a bed base, along with a telescopic sight, two samurai swords, improvised homemade fuses, copper piping and a wine bottle containing sulphuric acid were among items alleged to have been found there.
Anne whyte QC, prosecuting, told Sheffield Crown Court that when Star was arrested in a predawn raid at the chip shop he had ‘white dust in his hair’, with white fibres on his body that looked like loft insulation.
Vital evidence, including an iPad and iPhone, were found in the loft, while the discovery of suspicious substances led to the bomb disposal squad carrying out a controlled explosion to make the property safe, the jury heard.
There were ‘several partially constructed explosive devices, a number of already functioned devices, viable low explosive material and improvised pyrotechnic fuses’, Miss whyte said, including gunpowder and material that could be used in a pipe bomb.
Chemicals found in home-made explosives were also identified, the court heard. Miss whyte said the men ‘had decided that improvised explosive devices could be made and used in a way here in the UK that spared their own lives preferably but harmed others they considered to be infidels’.
Salah was arrested in his room at the Fatima Community Centre in Sheffield, where police said they found ‘gunpowder and explosive material’.
He was told his arrest was for a plan to carry out an attack ‘involving explosives in the near future’ at an unidentified location.
Miss whyte said Salah’s social media posts revealed evidence of his fanatical views and desire to go abroad to fight for IS.
on Facebook, he sent an image of an assault rifle propped against a wall captioned: ‘God is great, is it going to happen to see the day on which I soak the Kafirs [nonbelievers] in their own blood if Allah wills.’ He also wrote: ‘I want to go to Jihad.’ Miss whyte said Salah was ‘ getting increasingly desperate to do something in the cause of IS’. He is said to have told a contact: ‘My only attempt is to find a way to carry out martyrdom operation with cars without driver ... everything is perfect only the programme is left.’
Miss whyte said: ‘He was planning an attack, but he was not planning alone.’
Star had obtained materials to ‘conduct small test runs with explosives’ from his flat above the fish and chip shop, she said.
The court heard he may not have held his extremist views for long. A former girlfriend said he had become ‘profoundly religious’.
The case continues.