‘Online jihadi obsession of student who put rucksack bomb on Tube’
A STUDENT planted a bomb on a Tube train after becoming obsessed with Islamic terrorism, a court heard yesterday.
Damon Smith, 20, left a rucksack containing the device in a carriage on his way to a university lecture.
The train driver picked up the bag, thinking it was lost property, but alerted bosses when he saw wires inside on his way to the next station.
Smith, an autistic computer forensics student and poker enthusiast, says he planted the device as a prank, claiming it was only designed to generate smoke and impress people online.
But in scenes of pandemonium, hundreds of commuters were evacuated as bomb squad officers were scrambled to defuse it. It caused the biggest alert on the Tube network since the London bombings of July 2005.
Investigators say Smith, who was arrested the next day, is fixated on weapons and bombs, as well as Islamic State and Al Qaeda.
Yesterday, as he went on trial at the Old Bailey, it emerged that Smith played poker at casinos and online, and watched videos about weapons and explosives. Police found Islamist material at his home, including a picture of him posing with an image of the man behind the attacks on Paris in 2015, the court heard.
He took the selfie in front of TV footage of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who was killed in a police raid after the attacks in which 130 people died.
Smith is also accused of writing out Al Qaeda bomb-making instructions, allegedly finishing with the words: ‘And keep this a secret between me and Allah #InspireTheBelievers.’
Paper strips from a shredder were reassembled and found to be pages from Inspire, an illegal magazine produced by Al Qaeda, it is alleged.
It included an article on making a bomb in the ‘kitchen of your mom’, which was annotated in green ink. An expert said the writing was Smith’s.
Police are also said to have found a pistol that fired blanks, a ball-bearing gun, a knife and a knuckleduster.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees said the bomb contained ball bearings that would have become deadly shrapnel in an explosion. He added: ‘The defendant built an improvised explosive device which he intended would explode and endanger the lives of those travelling in that train or cause serious damage to the train itself.
‘The body of the device also contained a quantity of ball bearings to act as shrapnel with a view to increasing the destructive effect of the device.
‘The defendant denies that was his intention. While he accepts building a device and leaving it in the Tube train, it is his case that this was all a prank and he had no intention of harming anyone or causing serious damage to property.’
The bomb alert took place just before 11am on October 20 at North Greenwich station in south-east London.
The device did not go off, but experts found that tape wrapped around it had been singed. It was made from a battery, a broken fairylight bulb and a £2 alarm clock, and contained an explosive charge and ball bearings.
Smith left it in a black Adidas bag on the Jubilee Line train before getting off at London Bridge, police discovered.
When the train pulled into Canary Wharf, passengers pointed out the unattended bag to driver Adrian Clarke, who took it into his cab.
Mr Rees said: ‘On spotting the wires protruding from the clock, he informed the line controller that he had a suspect package on board. Had the device worked, it would have gone off while passengers were being ordered off the platform.’
The court heard that Smith, who studies at London Metropolitan University, has highfunctioning autism, which led to ‘significant impairment in social communication’.
Smith told police he was brought up a Christian but thought Islam was ‘more true’. He admitted he didn’t really practise it, although he read the Koran and prayed sometimes if
‘Intended to endanger lives’ ‘The joke... making a bit of smoke’
it was ‘convenient’.
At his home in Rotherhithe, south-east London, police allegedly found more bomb parts. A second device was found at his former home in Newton Abbot, Devon, wrapped in a bag with UK Islamic Mission written on the outside, the court heard. It was incapable of exploding.
He told police he was inspired by a YouTube channel to plant a fake bomb, thinking it would be funny to stop the train for 20 minutes and watch it on TV, adding: ‘The joke, what I did, like making a bit of smoke.’
Smith denies possessing an explosive substance with intention to endanger life and cause serious injury and preparing explosives. The trial continues.