I wish I could turn back time, says Tube bomb suspect, 18

The teenager accused of the Parson’s Green bombing said he invented links with terrorists in order to get asylum in Britain.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, an Iraqi asylum seeker, arrived in the UK in October 2015 and told immigration officials he had been forced to train “to kill” by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the Old Bailey heard.

On Sept 15 last year, the media student is said to have planted 400g of homemade explosives and shrapnel on a District Line tube, timed to go off when it reached the west London stop.

When he was picked up at the port of Dover the following morning he told police he made the bomb.

However, Hassan told jurors he made up a story about being kidnapped by Isil so he would be allowed to remain in Britain.

Hassan went on to express regret at what happened, saying: “I wish I could travel back in time and stop it at once but that’s not possible. I’m very sorry.”

Hassan, of Sunbury, Surrey, has denied attempted murder and using the chemical compound TATP to cause an explosion that was likely to endanger life.