Soldier plot to 'cause panic'

A terror plot to kidnap a soldier from Broad Street in Birmingham, before filming his beheading was aimed at "causing panic and fear" throughout the country, a court heard today.

Leicester Crown Court was told that computer disks and training manuals on how to make bombs and explosives were found in police swoops which smashed the cell in January last year.

The prosecution claims the soldier would have been approached on Broad Street, before being lured into a car, taken to a lock-up garage and beheaded.

Mr Nigel Rumfitt QC, prosecuting, said: "This would be aimed to cause panic and fear throughout the British Armed Forces and public.

"This atrocity would be filmed. His military ID card would prove who he was."

Defendant Amjad Mahmood, aged 32, knew of the plot but along with others, failed to pass on the information, it was alleged.

Mr Rumfitt said: "This was information that could have saved a soldier from what would have been a ghastly death."

But Mr Rumfitt warned the jury: "These men are not here because of their religious beliefs.

"This is not a prosecution of the Islamic faith.They are here because we accuse them of breaking the law by getting involved in terrorism."

Mahmood, from Jackson Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham, denies failure to supply information about the plot to behead the soldier.

Zahoor Iqbal, 30, from Elmbridge Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham, denies possessing a CD called Encyclopedia Jihad which could be useful to terrorists.

Both men also deny assisting terrorism by supplying equipment.

The jury was told that as well as Islamic "fanatic" Parviz Khan, who has admitted his part in the conspiracy, three other men from Birmingham – Basiru Gassama, 30, of Radstock Avenue, Hodge Hill; Mohammed Irfan, 31, of Asquith Road, Ward End and Hamid Elasmar, 45, of Bristol Road, Edgbaston – have all admitted their part in the operations for the terrorist cell.

The case continues.