Yahoo News Parsons Green bomber who was inspired by Mission: Impossible convicted of attempted murder
Ahmed Hassan has been found guilty of attempted murder after planting a homemade bomb on a crowded rush-hour London underground train.
The Iraqi asylum seeker was convicted at the Old Bailey after a home-made bomb partially exploded at Parsons Green Tube station in west London in September last year.
Hassan, 18, of Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, admitted to making the bomb using hydrogen peroxide and a kitchen timer.
He told the court this week that he had left a homemade bomb on a train because he was ‘very bored, very depressed, very confused’ and wanted to draw attention to himself.
Hassan also told a psychologist he was inspired by Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible action films.
He wanted to create a fire to fulfil a ‘fugitive fantasy’ of being chased around Europe by Interpol.
51 people were injured as the fireball from the partially-exploded bomb ripped through the carriage.
A jury at the Old Bailey took only one day to find Hassan guilty of attempted murder.
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Judge Mr Justice Haddon-Cave told him: ‘Ahmed Hassan, you have been found guilty by this jury at the Old Bailey of attempted murder on overwhelming evidence.
‘I am now going to discuss with counsel the arrangements and timings for sentencing you.’
Hassan sat with head bowed and gave no reaction to his conviction.
Prosecutor Alison Morgan said Hassan blamed the UK for his father’s death in Iraq and he ‘left nothing to chance’ in the attack’s planning.
Ms Morgan said: ‘He (Mr Hassan) may have been troubled by events in his past. He may well be motivated by circumstances he may now not admit to you.
‘What he did that day was an act of anger and hatred designed to cause death and destruction of property.
She continued: ‘It is a matter of luck that there was not a full explosion that day, not because of any deliberate intention on the part of the defendant to cause just a fire.’
Hassan had made his device with 400g of volatile ‘Mother of Satan’ explosives packed in a bucket with 2.2kg of screwdrivers, knives, nuts and bolts.
On the morning of September 15 last year, he left his home and caught a train to Wimbledon carrying his bomb inside a Lidl bag.
He was captured on CCTV going into the station toilets, where he set the bomb to blow in 15 minutes, before boarding the District line.
He got off the train one stop before the bomb partially exploded on the floor of the carriage at Parsons Green.
The Old Bailey heard he wanted to cause ‘maximum’ carnage to avenge the death of his father, who was blown up in Iraq more than 10 years before.
Hassan denied it, saying he only wanted to make a fire to fulfil a ‘fugitive fantasy’ to be chased by Interpol which was inspired by action films.
The court had heard Hassan told Home Office officials he was trained by Islamic State ‘to kill’ after he arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry in 2015.
However he later told jurors he lied about having contact with IS to get asylum in Britain and have the chance of a ‘better life’.
Hassan was taken in by foster parents Penny and Ron Jones MBE, and studied media and photography at Brooklands College in Weybridge.
But the ‘shy and polite’ young man harboured anger at Britain for bombing Iraq even as he pursued his ambition to be the new Sir David Attenborough.
He used his student of the year award of a £20 Amazon voucher to buy one of the key chemicals online.
More to follow
