Parsons Green Tube packed with nuts, bolts, screwdrivers and knives could have been 'lethal' if fully detonated, court told

CCTV of the moment an orange fireball ripped through a Tube carriage at Parsons Green
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A homemade bomb which caused a fireball on a rush-hour District Line train could have been “lethal” if it had detonated properly, an explosives expert told the Old Bailey today.

Iraqi asylum seeker Ahmed Hassan is accused of trying to murder commuters at Parson Green station with the improvised device, which he left in a packed carriage last September.

Shocking CCTV has been played to jurors, showing the moment the device partially detonated and sent flames shooting through the train.

Sarah Wilson, an explosives expert, said she had examined the bomb in the aftermath of the blast to determine how it was made and what its impact could have been.

A sketch of Parsons Green Tube bombing suspect Ahmed Hassan in court

She told the court the trigger, fashioned out of a kitchen timer and a light bulb, appeared to have worked as planned, but the explosive TATP mixture in a Tupperware box and a blue vase did not detonate properly.

Asked what would have happened if it had properly detonated, Ms Wilson said the device “had the potential to cause damage to property and serious harm to persons in close proximity which potentially could be lethal.”

Knives that were recovered from the scene of the Tube explosion

The court also heard the bomb was packed with 2.2kgs of shrapnel, including screwdrivers, knives, drill bits and sockets.

Ms Wilson said if the device had worked fully, metal fragments would have been “expelled out rapidly to some distance”, causing harm to people nearby.

An image of the homemade bomb after it partially detonated

However, she told the jury she did not find any damage to the train carriage after the blast, other than “sooting” on the ceiling.

Mr Wilson said forensic investigators found traces of the TATP explosive on the hob, extractor fan, and kitchen sink at Hassan’s foster home in Sunbury.

CCTV footage as an orange fireball fills the Tube carriage

They also discovered a blue vase similar to the one used in the bomb, other Tupperware boxes, and similar knives that were among the shrapnel.

Hassan, 18, who snuck into the UK on the back of a lorry in 2015, is accused of deliberately triggering the bomb, timed to go off at Parsons Green station after he had got off the District Line train on the morning of September 15 last year.

He told authorities in January 2016, as he applied for asylum, that he had been “trained to kill” by ISIS, but said he was forced to join the extremist group against his will.

The Tube carriage following the explosion

Hassan, named pupil of the year at his college just a few months before the bombing, allegedly bought chemicals for the explosive on Amazon, and shopped for shrapnel at Asda and Aldi.

He was caught on camera taking the bomb to the train station in a Lidl shopping back and concealed beneath a pair of trousers.

Hassan, from Sunbury, Surrey, denies attempted murder and causing an explosion likely to endanger life or damage property.

The trial continues.

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