A man arrested for suspicion of involvement in terrorism was part of a plot to mount a Mumbai-style attack and may have also been involved in another plot to assassinate former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, a court was told on Tuesday.
Erol Incedal, 26, from south London, is facing an ongoing partly-secret trial at the high court. He denies the charges that include his phone containing material of the ISIS.
Blair’s home address was found in Incedal’s black Mercedes car when it was pulled over for a road traffic matter and searched in September last year, Richard Whittam, prosecuting lawyer, told the high court.
After a listening device was placed in the car Incedal was recorded talking about the need to find an “illegal house”, to avoid moving material around.
Whittam told the jury: “You will hear that he (Incedal) was actively engaged with another or others who were abroad. The prosecution case is that such engagement was for an act, or acts of terrorism, either against a limited number of individuals, an individual of significance, or a more wide-ranging and indiscriminate attack, such as the one in Mumbai in 2008; an attack on members of the public in general, particularly in a hotel.”
Incedal was arrested along with Mounir Rarmoul-Bougadjar. Both men had SD memory cards wrapped in masking tape inside the cases of their Apple iPhones, Whittam said. On the cards were three files about bomb making.
{{/usCountry}}Incedal was arrested along with Mounir Rarmoul-Bougadjar. Both men had SD memory cards wrapped in masking tape inside the cases of their Apple iPhones, Whittam said. On the cards were three files about bomb making.
{{/usCountry}}The jury heard that Rarmoul-Bouhadjar had admitted possession of the documents.
Meanwhile, the police said they had arrested six people on terrorism charges in an investigation linked to the conflict in Syria. The three men and three women were detained in Farnborough and Portsmouth in Hampshire, southern England, and in Greenwich in southeast London.