Asylum seeker told mentor of his ‘duty to hate Britain’

A TEENAGE asylum seeker said it was his “duty to hate Britain” before he planted a bomb at Parsons Green Tube station, a court has heard.

Iraqi Ahmed Hassan, 18, arrived in Britain in October 2015, two years before he left 400g of TATP on a Tube train, which partially exploded, the Old Bailey has heard.

During that time, he studied media at Brooklands College in Weybridge, Surrey, and was found a foster home with a couple in Sunbury, the court heard.

Even though Hassan had been named student of the year in June 2017, his lecturer and mentor Katie Cable became concerned about his behaviour, the court heard.

Ms Cable even alerted the Prevent team after she saw a WhatsApp message on his phone saying: “IS has accepted your donation” in August 2016.

He also told her he blamed Britain for the death of his parents in Iraq and said: “It’s my duty to hate Britain,” the court heard.

Giving evidence, Ms Cable said Hassan was initially “incredibly conflicted, frightened, confused, plagued by boredom”.

When he first started at Brooklands in April 2016, he would snap pens and walk out of the classroom, she said.

Ms Cable told jurors: “I believe Ahmed said his father was blown up and his mother had been shot.”

He talked about Tony Blair and expressed “anger” at events in Iraq, she said: “I believe the anger was very clear. He referred to being angry several times.”

He allegedly told her “the British” were responsible for his parents’ death.

He would suffer “flashbacks” and “depression”, so she organised a place on the National Citizenship Scheme during the summer of 2016.

But he declined holiday offers in the 2017 break and by September 7 last year, Ms Cable said she was becoming “really concerned about his mental state”.

The day before the bombing, he gave her presents for children, which she found “strange”.

Ms Cable told jurors Hassan was “very clever” and made great academic progress. But in an immigration interview in January 2016, he told officials that IS had trained him “to kill”.

Hassan denies attempted murder and using the chemical compound TATP to cause an explosion that was likely to endanger life. The trial continues.