Suspect 'wanted to kill infidels'

Andrew Ibrahim was allegedly planning to attack a shopping centre

A student accused of making a 'suicide vest' was overheard in prison saying infidels and prison officers should be killed, a court has heard.

Andrew Ibrahim, 20, is accused of making an explosive with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the UK in April 2008.

A prison officer at HMP Belmarsh, where the accused was taken after being charged, said he heard the comments.

Mr Ibrahim denies the charge and several others connected to it.

These are purchasing material to make an explosive, making that explosive, buying material to detonate the explosive, carrying out "reconnaissance" before the act and "making an improvised suicide vest in which to then detonate an explosive substance".

'Arrogant'

Prison officer Mark Rayner told Winchester Crown Court he heard the defendant address the remarks to a fellow prisoner.

"I heard him say 'The only law I recognise is the law of Allah' and prison officers were holding him unlawfully and therefore we should be killed.

"He said that infidels should be killed the same as prison officers that were holding him unlawfully. He was being arrogant. It wasn't exactly a loud conversation but he was speaking as if it didn't bother him who heard.

"It went on for quite a long while. He went into the other prisoner's cell for a few minutes - it almost seemed as if they were the best of friends and knew each other for ages."

Mr Rayner said he also found some home-made posters with extremist Islamic writing on them in Mr Ibrahim's cell, which he had confiscated.

The trial has heard a quantity of home-made high explosive, hexamethylene triperoxide diamine (HMTD) was found in a container in a fridge at Mr Ibrahim's home when he was arrested.

Mr Ibrahim had converted to Islam

Also found in his one-bedroom flat in Bristol was a circuit which could have been used to detonate explosive, as well as a suicide vest, the court heard.

The prosecution said Mr Ibrahim, who calls himself Isa, was preparing to carry out a terrorist attack on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol.

The court heard Mr Ibrahim, who had been radicalised after converting to Islam, made only three brief written statements during questioning by police over 11 days.

The court heard he had researched Islamic fundamentalism, and had learned how to create explosives from ingredients found at his flat.

The trial continues.