WITH UPDATE: FRIDAY 23 MARCH 2018
Ahmed Hassan has been found guilty by a jury at the Old Bailey in London of attempted murder after he placed a bomb on a rush-hour Tube train, which then partially exploded at the Parsons Green overground station on the London Underground on 15 September last year. The jury took just a day to reach its verdict following the trial at which Hassan had admitted planting the bomb but claimed that he didn’t intend for it to explode and that he did it because he was “bored and stressed” and was just trying to generate some excitement by being on the run. The jury clearly didn’t believe a word he said and he was convicted on “overwhelming evidence” that showed he planned, made and placed the bomb on a train. He packed the bomb, made from 400g of TATP explosive and shrapnel consisting of nails, screwdrivers, nuts and bolts – the shrapnel itself weighed over 2kg. The jury accepted the prosecution claim that the bomb was designed to cause maximum injury and death and it was only a matter of luck that it had failed to detonate properly.
Photo: Hassan boarding a District Line train in Wimbledon carrying his homemade bomb
Hassan was filmed on CCTV carrying the bomb onto the westbound District Line train at Wimbledon in south London. He left the bomb on board on a timer when he disembarked the stop before Parsons Green where it partially detonated causing a fireball through the carriage leaving 23 people with burn injuries and another 28 with crush injuries in the attempt to escape. Miraculously no-one died. Hassan fled and was arrested the next day at the south coast port of Dover where he was planning to take a ferry to the Continent.
Photo: shrapnel Hassan used in his bomb
Hassan had made the bomb while living with a foster family in Surrey, England. They were away from home at the time. Questions are being raised after the revelation that Hassan had been referred prior to the attack to the government’s Prevent counter-extremism programme following him showing signs of radicalisation. Prevent were examining his case as early as 2016 but Hassan had not received any support from the programme for months. He is said to have eventually been referred to specialists whose responsibility was to attempt to change his mindset and they had not given him the all-clear when the attack took place. It seems, amazingly, that the family he was living with were not aware of his referral to Prevent.
Security Minister Ben Wallace said: “It is clear that there are some lessons to be learned in this particular case. The police and local council have conducted an internal review into how it was handled and we are working with our partners to review the findings and to identify where further improvements can be made.” I’m not a huge fan of the Prevent programme and this case only reinforces my doubts about it. As I have said in previous posts related to Hassan it seems incredible that someone who openly admitted to being a member of Islamic State when he sought asylum in the UK should be allowed to remain in the country – regardless of his age or which worn-tell Hell he came from. Hassan had come from Iraq after claiming to have been freed from IS by Iraqi soldiers who let him and others go home. Instead of returning to his family in Iraq – he was then 15 – he chose to come to the UK and seek asylum here. He claimed that his family were threatened if he didn’t cooperate with Islamic State but it seems to me that once he was liberated from Islamic State he has put his family in even greater danger from IS reprisals by fleeing to the UK.
Photo: Calais “jungle” from where Hassan left to enter the UK
Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner, David Munro, echoed the views of Ben Wallace by saying: “opportunities were missed” in preventing Hassan’s attack, continuing: “As far as Surrey is concerned it is obvious we were too slow – all the organisations involved.” What Prevent would have done I don’t know but it is clear that Hassan was radicalised long before he came to the UK. Having been referred to Prevent, Hassan was deemed a serious case. Yet the Prevent team assigned to him didn’t follow the normal procedure of intense monitoring and no-one asked the Home Office for a so-called “intervention provider.” In my opinion, the only way they could have stopped the attack was not by pandering to him, and not taking him at his word, but to kick him out of the country or into Belmarsh prison the moment he admitted being a member of Islamic State. There should be no second chances and no accommodation to the wishes of anyone – whether they are a British citizen or not, or whether they are a child or not – who is shown to have been a member of Islamic State.
Photos: Hassan with a knife and extremist graffiti in his bedroom. Hassan also flew the black Islamic State flag in his bedroom!
Hassan was described as “cunning and devious” and that he hid his real intentions and emotions from the Prevent team. This only reinforces my fears of the dangers of pampering to people who have been in Islamic State and come to this country seeking asylum. Immigration, the Home Office, local councils and Prevent are all taking them on trust and that is just too dangerous. Surrey County Council, to whom Hassan was referred when he arrived in a lorry from Calais in January 2016, said their work “wasn’t as good as it should have been” in helping to stop people such as Hassan from being drawn into terrorism. No shit, Sherlock? Hassan had already been drawn into terrorism – he was in Islamic State for fuck’s sake. Hassan clearly ran rings round Surrey County Council, the Immigration Service, the Home Office, and the Prevent team as well the people who took him into their homes. That is the lesson we need to learn from the case of Ahmed Hassan – never trust someone seeking asylum when you KNOW they were part of Islamic State.
Hassan will be sentenced at a later date. It will be interesting to see what sentence he gets. As no-one died in his terrorist attack, he has only been convicted of attempted murder, so this will likely be reflected in his sentence. However, as this is a terrorist act he can still expect a long prison sentence.
Update: Friday 23 March 2018 – Ahmed Hassan sentenced to life in prison
Following his conviction last week of attempted murder in relation to his failed attempt to blow up a London Underground train at Parsons Green on 15 September 2017, Ahmed Hassan has been sentenced today to life in prison and will have to serve a minimum sentence of 34 years before he is eligible for parole. Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, passing sentence, told Hassan that he was treating the offences as terrorist offences, telling him: “There is no doubt that you are a very dangerous and devious individual. You quietly went about planning and executing the terrorist bomb attack with ruthless determination and almost military efficiency, whilst pretending to be a model asylum-seeker. […] I am satisfied you were determined to create as much death and carnage that day as possible.”
In connection with what I was saying in earlier in this post last week, Hassan had been referred to the Government’s anti-radicalisation Prevent programme. It has now emerged, according to the BBC, that Hassan had refused to cooperate with the programme, yet still claimed asylum in this country. This is just another reason why, as I was writing about last week, Hassan should have been deported from the country long before he had the opportunity to carry out this terrorist attack.
Sources & Further Reading:
- Parsons Green attack: Iraqi teenager convicted over Tube bomb – BBC – Friday 16 March 2018
- Parsons Green attack: The Iraqi fantasist who wanted attention – BBC – Friday 16 March 2018 – by Emma Harrison and Gaetan Portal
- Why is it so easy to buy bomb ingredients? – BBC – Saturday 17 March 2018 – by Henry Dodd
- Parsons Green Tube bombing: Teenager Ahmed Hassan jailed for life – BBC – Friday 23 March 2018
- Parsons Green bomber who injured 51 passengers jailed for life – Metro – Friday 23 March 2018 – by Nicole Morley
STEPHEN NULTY 