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'Bomber Plotted To Target Easter Shoppers'

'Bomber Plotted To Target Easter Shoppers'

Lawyers prosecuting a man accused of plotting to blow up Manchester's Arndale shopping centre have told a court he "was giving life to al Qaeda's words with blood".

Abid Naseer is on trial in New York accused of playing a major part in a global terror plot to launch coordinated attacks in Manhattan, Manchester and Copenhagen in 2009.

In her closing arguments, lead prosecutor Zainab Ahmad said that the 28-year-old was going to use a car bomb or bombs in Manchester "and watch people die".

She said the attack was specifically designed to target the Arndale Centre around Easter bank holiday to maximise causalities.

She said glass fronted shops like Next and others had been selected so that glass and shrapnel "could pierce the eyes, the skin, the hearts of Easter shoppers".

During the trial US government lawyers have accused Naseer of using coded language to communicate with senior al Qaeda handlers about his plan, the same handlers who were supervising the New York and Copenhagen plots.

They say Naseer used women's names to refer to bombs, and talked of weddings to indicate an attack.

They also said he went to Pakistan to receive advanced explosives training from al Qaeda, as did the plotters.

Naseer has maintained he was referring to real women in his emails with friends he met online, that he didn't know he was talking to terrorists, and that he went back to Pakistan to visit his sick mother.

Although Naseer was never directly involved in the NY plot, US attorney Ahmad said that the planned attacks in the three different cities were all "spokes of the same central conspiracy".

She said: "This hub and spoke conspiracy is considered one conspiracy under the law".

Abid Naseer was extradited to face trial in the US in 2013.

He was previously arrested in the UK but never charged.

Naseer is representing himself and refers to himself in the third person when speaking to the jury.

In his closing arguments he told them that the prosecution had presented only circumstantial evidence, and that they had failed to call any witness who had first hand knowledge that he was connected to al Qaeda, or that he was part of the Manchester plot.

He said: "Abid is innocent, he's not a terrorist."

"He's an innocent man who was just living his life ... Getting together to party, chasing girls in the internet.

"He's young and a little bit desperate and he wants to settle down.

"Who can say this is a crime?"

He denies all of the charges against him. If convicted, he faces life in prison.