Men on trial over alleged "airline bomb plot"

The device, made from an Oasis soft drink bottle, had to be put together with
a remote controlled arm at a government laboratory because the mixture was
so volatile, a jury heard.

Keith Ritchie, a senior case office at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory
said: “If the mixture reacted unexpectedly with the detonator inside it
would result in the death of anybody nearby.”

The defendants watched intently on screens around the court as the
orange-coloured mixture exploded blacking out a miniature camera close to
the device and shattering 12mm laminated glass in front of another camera.

High density polyethelene protective boards around the sides of the concrete
firing chamber were dented and sent flying into the air.

”The aftermath shows boards collapsed everywhere,” said Richard Whittam,
prosecuting.

Further cameras showed the explosion from the back of the chamber and debris
flying out of the chamber.

A high-tech Phantom 7 camera, shooting at 300 frames a second caught the
moment of the explosion and shrapnel flying through the air in slow motion.

The explosion left debris across the floor of the chamber, blew a hole in the
middle of a 5mm thick aluminium “witness plate” under the device and split
plastic blocks on which it was sitting.

Five holes were left in a polyethelene plate under the device which
corresponded with the bottom of the Oasis bottle used for the bomb.

Woolwich Crown Court heard the danger of the homemade device going off was so
great that scientists at the Forensic Explosives Laboratory at Fort Halstead
in Kent had to insert the detonator with a mechanical arm once they had left
the chamber.

The court previously heard the men had not made the bombs but had “all the
basic components necessary for the manufacture of one or more device.”

Police found a suitcase with bomb-making components hidden in woodland at
King's Wood, near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire which had all the
ingredients for making HMTD, which was to have been used in the detonator.

The mixture was said to have been intended for an emptied out Toshiba AA
battery with a miniature lightbulb inside which would have been set off with
a disposable camera.

For the main charge, it is claimed the gang planned to use a syringe to remove
the contents from Lucozade and 500ml Oasis soft drinks bottles and replace
them with a homemade explosive mixture of hydrogen peroxide and the soft
drink powder Tang.

The “bomb factory” was to be a flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow, East London
but the plotters were being watched and filmed by MI5 and were arrested in
August 2006.


Eight men deny conspiracy to murder and the trial continue