Terror plot accused told wife he had months to live, court hears
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Version 0 of 1. A man accused of plotting terrorist attacks in London told his wife that he had just a few months to live, the Old Bailey heard. Erol Incedal was recorded making the statement after a listening device was placed in his car two weeks before his arrest. The jury heard that Incedal, 26, a law student from south London, made the comment in an outburst during a row with his wife, after she suggested that their marriage should end. “Wallah, happy with that because I’m never going to be around for long anyway, so it doesn’t make any difference to me,” Incedal was recorded saying. Incedal’s wife, Kadeejah Baluch, replies: “I don’t care.” Incedal: “At least the last few months of my life I’ll live with peace of mind.” Baluch: “Yeah, and I’ll live with peace of mind as well.” The listening device had been secreted inside Incedal’s black E-Class Mercedes in September 2013 after he was arrested and accused of committing a road traffic offence. When police had looked inside his white Versace glasses case, they had found a piece of paper on which was written the home address of Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Booth. After spending two hours in a police cell, Incedal was freed, and the jury was played a number of recordings made over the following three days. In one, he and two of his friends, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar and Ruslan Mamedov, could be heard watching videos depicting opposition fighters engaged in gun battles against the Syrian army, while sitting in the car. Afterwards, Incedal could be heard making gunshot noises, while apparently pointing at passers-by, as they drive around London. Incedal was recorded saying that videos depicting al-Qaida in Iraq “just puts this thing in your head that you just want to do drive-bys”. He was also recorded singing along with a soundtrack on one video: “’Cos we’re going to cut their throats. Shia!” In another recording, Incedal lowers his voice to a whisper to tell Mamedov that his laptop had been in the car when the vehicle was searched by police. Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar were arrested two weeks later when three cars carrying armed police surrounded the Mercedes near Tower Bridge, and officers shot the tyres. Both men are alleged to have been carrying SD memory cards containing documents concerning bomb-making. The jury has heard that Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, also 26 and from south London, has admitted possession of the documents. He will be sentenced after Incedal’s trial. Incedal denies two terrorism charges. The first, brought under section 5(1) of the Terrorism Act 2006, states that between 1 February 2012 and 14 October 2013 he intended to commit acts of terrorism or assist another to commit them. The second charge, under the Terrorism Act 2000, states he is accused of possessing a document, on or before 13 October last year, that is “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. The jury has been told that Incedal was preparing to mount an attack that could have been against a small group of people or a single prominent person. Alternatively, the prosecution alleges, he may have been planning an indiscriminate attack on a hotel, such as that mounted in Mumbai, India, in 2008. Significant parts of the evidence are being heard in secret, in what the prosecution has described as an exceptional case. Among items found when police searched the flat in south-east London where Incedal lived with his wife and three young children was a notebook which contained an entry headed “Plan A”. Beneath it was a list which read: “Three to four workers, two tennis rackets, one month’s surveillance, rent nearby flat, transport, assess security asses [sic] risk, legitimacy, action etc, uniform.” The jury has heard that when Incedal’s laptop was examined, a user profile, “tom13”, was found to have been used to create a Skype account in a woman’s name, Fatima Hamoodi. A Yahoo email account in that name had been used to communicate by email and Skype with accounts set up in the name Zaynab Alawi. The Hamoodi account received a number of emails that the prosecution alleged were coded suggestions. The word “straps” was alleged to refer to firearms, while “k 1122aaa shhh etc” was alleged to refer to Kalashnikovs, and “mo88m 55bayy style” to a Mumbai-style attack. The case continues. |