‘Jihadplotters’ scoutedjewish community
THE OLDHAM couple suspected of plotting to blow up Jews in Manchester allegedly scouted numerous Jewish neighbourhoods in the north of the city in a bid to find a suitable target, a court has heard.
Manchester Crown Court this week heard further prosecution evidence against hairdresser Shasta Khan. Her husband Sajid has already pleaded guilty to planning terrorist attacks, but Mrs Khan denies the charges.
Counter-terror police investigating the Khans found in the DVD player of the couple’s bedroom an al-Qaeda recording, showing a sheikh with guns and a rocket launcher. On it, the sheikh asks: “How many minarets and mosques have been destroyed by America or Jews?” .
Terror videos of gunmen were found on the couple’s home computer, Jihadi songs calling for martyrdom were found on CDs in Mrs Khan’s car, and antisemitic and anti-Western speeches were among 86 CDs in a box in the hall of their Oldham terraced house.
DC Andy Reid told the court that the material would play a role in “the early stages of radicalisation” and “extol the virtues of Jihad, fighting the West, Israel and contain antisemitic comments.”
But Mrs Khan’s defence counsel, Simon Drew QC, argued that only a handful of CDs found in the house contained proscribed extremism, while others found might belong “to just someone who is a religious devotee.”
Mrs Khan, 38, sat expressionless in the dock as the prosecution went through intricate details of 11 alleged reconnaissance missions to hunt out Jewish targets in north Manchester.
The jury was shown how, between March and July last year, Mrs Khan’s blue Peugeot car appeared to make erratic and repeated journeys for hours around almost every major Jewishpopulated street in north Manchester. The car’s satellite navigation device logged her making multiple passes and U-turns in repeated journeys whose routes encircled synagogues, Jewish schools, shops and houses.
The (now defunct) Jewish charity headquarters, Mamlock House in Cheetham Hill, was one such destination, among repeated and what the prosecution said were deliberate routes along Leicester Road, Northumberland Street, Upper Park Road, Waterpark Road, Singleton Road, and other areas of significant Jewish population.
Calls on Shasta Khan’s mobile phone were logged as made from Jewish areas. Animated maps of the journeys were screened in court, showing the couple apparently closing in on the Prestwich offices of the Jewish Agency.
Investigating officer DC Robert Smith told the court that, in one journey on Monday June 26, 17 U-turns were made to allow the blue Peugeot to circle Jewish areas.
“I cannot explain why a car would change its direction unless it was some- body clearly researching a particular area,” he said.
Prosecuting counsel Bobby Cheema told the court the same journeys were made for two hours or more, often one day after another: “This demonstrates a focus on the Prestwich area and the area where the Jewish Agency is located. It is a focus in terms of time and area.”
The case continues.