Christians Under Attack

TWO Islamic extremists plotted to blow up one of Britain’s biggest nightclubs because it would “get the public talking”, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

They discussed taking jobs at a bar or club and detonating a fertiliser bomb on a Saturday night. In particular, they spoke about blowing up the Ministry of Sound in South London.

But Omar Khyam, 24, and Jawad Akbar, 22, did not realise that they were being recorded by MI5. Mr Khyam boasted that the flat could not be bugged because “if they knew about it [the conspiracy] they wouldn’t wait one day to arrest me”. The pair were arrested five weeks later, in March 2004.

They and five other British men are accused of conspiring to organise a terrorist attack.

In a tape played to the jury, Mr Akbar is heard saying: “You could get a job like this for example, the biggest nightclub in Central London . . . No one can even turn around and say, ‘Oh, they were innocent’, those slags dancing around. If you went for the social structure where every Tom, Dick and Harry goes on a Saturday night, that would be crazy . . . Like you said, you need a lot of organising, a lot of planning.”

Mr Khyam asks him: “If you got a job in a bar or club, say the Ministry of Sound, what are you planning to do there?” Mr Akbar replies: “Blow the whole thing up.” In a statement, Gary Smart, the manager of the Ministry of Sound, said that nearly 2,000 clubbers pass through its doors on Saturday nights. About 15 per cent are of Asian origin.

It is unprecedented for the transcripts of a conversation bugged by MI5 to be released in open court during a trial. Today it is expected that the judge will reach an agreement with broadcast organisations to release the audio tapes of the bugged conversations.

The jury also saw a video of Mr Akbar and Mr Khyam arriving with Mr Khyam’s brother, Shujah Mahmood, at a flat in Uxbridge, Middlesex.

Once inside, their conversation was recorded. They had a rambling discussion about targets, holy war, setting up an Islamic state and the terrorist attacks in New York and Bali. They described British security as “a joke”, but also discussed more mundane matters. Mr Khyam boasted about his new camera. Mr Mahmood, 18, could be heard singing and chanting in the background.

Mr Akbar and Mr Khyam were recorded discussing attacks on electricity, gas or water supplies or phone lines.

Mr Akbar is recorded saying: “If you did that on a big scale that would affect more people even than a bomb. People see death but they forget, but when it happens to them they never forget. Imagine the whole of England . . . You can affect more people by taking away their reserves.”

But Mr Khyam dismisses the plan, saying that it would not create enough panic. Mr Akbar says he agrees that terror “is the best way”. But he later admits that he would “chicken out” if asked to carry out a suicide mission.

Mr Khyam, Mr Akbar, Mr Mahmood and Waheed Mahmood, 34, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Bedfordshire; Anthony Garcia, 24, from Ilford, Essex; and Nabeel Hussain, 21, from Horley, Surrey, all deny conspiring to cause an explosion likely to endanger life between October 2003 and March 2004.

Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain deny possessing 600kg (1,320lb) of fertiliser for the purposes of terrorism. Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny possessing aluminium powder for the purposes of terrorism. The trial continues.

• A version of this story yesterday incorrectly stated that all the defendants were present at the flat in Uxbridge where the tape recording was made. In fact only Mr Akbar, Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood were present.