INGRATE BRITAIN REFUGEE
Blast rap for Iraqi raised by UK couple
A teenage Iraqi refugee who was taken in by British foster parents was charged Friday with attempted murder in the bombing of a crowded London subway train last week.
Ahmed Hassan, 18, appeared in court, where a prosecutor said he used items bought on Amazon to build the device that injured 30 people at the Parsons Green station.
The timer-activated “bucket bomb” was loaded with knives, screws and metal shrapnel, as well as hundreds of grams of homemade triacetone triperoxide, a high explosive known as TATP, prosecu- tor Lee Ingham said.
Hassan allegedly purchased the ingredients for the TATP — a favorite of terrorists — from online retailers including Amazon.
But while an initiating blast went off, the deadly mixture didn’t explode, “probably due to inaccurate construction,” Ingham said.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the morning rushhour blast on Sept. 15, which marked Britain’s fifth terror attack in six months.
Hassan has said his birth parents were killed in Iraq and that he was motivated by a “warped political view” and “hatred for the UK government and society,” Ingham said.
In court, Hassan confirmed his name and gave his address as the suburban Sunbury-on-Thames home of Penelope and Ronald Jones, who have fostered more than 200 children, including refugees from the Middle East.
A 21-year-old man who also lived with the unidentified foster couple was also arrested but was released with- out charges, as were a 17-yearold boy and a 48-year-old man.
Two other men, ages 25 and 30, remained in custody as suspects in the bombing, and cops were conducting searches in Surrey and Newport, Wales.
Hassan allegedly built the bomb in a plastic bucket that he carried onto the London Underground in a plastic supermarket bag. He left it on a train, then got off one stop before it burst into a fireball, authorities have said.
Hassan was busted last Saturday at the Port of Dover, where ferries leave for France, when he was recognized by a sharp-eyed cop.