BOMB NUT LOCKED UP
Trains targeted
AN Islamic State supporter who tried to make a bomb from fairy lights was yesterday jailed for life.
Zahid Hussain was considering targeting railway lines after viewing hundreds of Isis images of the war in Syria.
His pressure cooker device was packed with 1.6kg of shrapnel.
Judge Mr Justice Sweeney told Hussain, 29, of Birmingham, it was clear he had been strongly committed to carrying out multiple bombings.
Hussain used a bedroom in his parents’ house as his base to research explosives. He had scouted woods near the house in Alum Rock, including the main London rail line.
Books on guerrilla warfare were also discovered, including one which talked of attacks on railways.
The judge said that had his homemade device been viable, it would have been capable of causing a “significant explosion”.
He added: “If detonated in a crowded area it would have been potentially fatal to those within metres of it and would have potentially caused serious injury among those up to 10 metres away.” Ex-doorman Hussain had attempted to create a remote-control detonator with a wireless doorbell, and had successfully manufactured four igniters from fairy lights.
Danger
CCTV showed him climbing down a storm drain near a highspeed rail line and he was held after being spotted “patrolling” streets near the family home.
Mr Justice Sweeney sentenced Hussain to a minimum term of 15 years at Winchester Crown Court yesterday.
He told him: You are a dangerous offender and in the view of the level of the danger that you pose, and the impossibility of predicting when it will come to an end, this is an appropriate case in which to impose a sentence of life imprisonment.”
Jurors were told Hussain had an interest in Isis and viewed images showing the Boston bombers who had successfully used pressure cooker bombs.
Psychiatric reports suggested Hussain suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, the judge said.