Two-bed flat 'was bomb factory'

Prosecutors say the flat was bought for cash one month before the arrests

Liquid bombs which were to be used to blow up airliners above the Atlantic were made in a two-bedroom flat in Walthamstow, east London, Woolwich Crown Court has heard.

Eight men are on trial for plotting to explode bombs made from soft drink bottles and household goods on board flights bound for north America in summer 2006. All deny conspiring to murder and endangering aircraft.

Prosecutors told the court that the flat was bought for £138,000 in cash one month before the arrest of the alleged conspirators.

It was close to the home of the alleged ringleader of the plot, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, who was filmed several times entering and leaving by undercover police, jurors were told.

Defendants 'seen'

Prosecutors said his co-defendants, Tanvir Hussain, Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Waheed Khan, Waheed Zaman and Umar Islam, were also seen at the premises.

"It is the Crown's case that this unoccupied property on a busy road in a residential area of Walthamstow was ideally situated to the needs of the conspirators in this case because within days of the sale having been completed the property had been transformed into a bomb factory," Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, told the court.

"It contained the various paraphernalia necessary to create the kind of improvised explosive devices that could be carried through security at an airport disguised as items of hand luggage and soft drinks."

The jury was told that the fingerprints and DNA of several of the defendants were found on rubbish outside the flat, including carrier bags and latex gloves.

'Bomb parts' found

In the kitchen cupboards of the flat, bottles of the soft drinks Lucozade and Oasis, batteries, syringes, food dye and disposable cameras were found, the court heard.

Self-assembly bombs were allegedly packed into drinks bottles

Prosecutors claim that the bombs were to be made from an explosive liquid which was to be injected into the base of soft drinks bottles. Detonators were to be disguised as batteries and the electrical charge was to come from disposable cameras, they said.

All those items would be taken on board an aircraft in hand luggage, and the bomb would be assembled during the flight, jurors were told.

Mr Wright also said it appeared that several of the alleged suicide videos attributed to the defendants had been filmed at the flat in Walthamstow.

"It seemed from the examination that took place that the officers found not only the bomb factory but also the location at which at least some of the suicide videos or parts of them had been filmed," he said.