UK terror camps run by 'Osama bin London'

LONDON: An Islamic cleric calling himself 'Osama Bin London' groomed and corrupted young Muslims, including the London bombers, at terror training camps across Britain, a court here was told.

Fifty-year-old Mohammed Hamid told his followers that the 52 deaths in the attacks in London on July 7, 2005, were 'not even breakfast to me', the Woolwich Crown Court heard on Thursday.

He called the September 11 hijackers the 'magnificent 15' and talked about 'six or seven atrocities' before the 2012 Olympics in London.

The cleric organised Friday prayer groups at his home in east London and went to the Lake District with all four of the men convicted of the failed July 21 bombings, the court heard.

Just hours after the July 7 bombings, Hamid sent a text message to one of the 21/7 bombers, Hussain Osman. It said, "Assalam bro, we fear no one except Allah. We will not change our ways, we are proud to be Muslim and we will not hide."

David Farrell, QC, for the prosecution, said the message showed exactly where Hamid's sympathies and intentions lay.

"It also gives a pretty clear indication of what Hamid, at least, thought, the prosecution suggest, the ultimate purpose of the training in which they were all engaged was aimed at. Certainly, two weeks later, some of his former pupils decided to put words into action."

Hamid ran an Islamic bookstall on Oxford Street, with Muktar Ibrahim, one of the guilty bombers, where he was arrested for being aggressive to members of the public and making a racist comment to a policeman, the jury was told.

Hamid was said to have given his name as Osama bin London and to have told the police officer, "I've got a bomb and I'm going to blow you all up."