Jonathan Rees QC prosecutes London Tube bomb accused Damon Smith
Jonathan Rees QC appeared at the Old Bailey last week prosecuting Damon Smith, the 20 year old student behind the Greenwich bomb scare which took place last October. Smith allegedly packed and abandoned a rucksack with explosives and ball-bearing shrapnel attached to a clock timed to go off on the Jubilee Line.
The court heard that Smith had an interest in Islam, guns and gambling, and collected pictures of extremists including the alleged mastermind of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.
After he was arrested, Smith, who has Asperger’s syndrome, said the device was intended to work as a smoke bomb and had been left as a prank for “a bit of fun”. The prosecution said the device, which had partially detonated, had been designed to endanger lives.
Passengers spotted the backpack shortly before 11am and alerted the driver, who first thought the bag was lost property and took it into the cabin with him. After looking inside again on his way to North Greenwich station the driver saw wires protruding from the back of a clock and raised the alarm. When the train arrived at North Greenwich station at 10.56am, it and the station were evacuated. The device was set to go off at about 11.02am.
During a search of Smith’s home, police found shredded documents that, when reconstructed, were found to be an article from an al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula magazine, headlined: “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom”, showing how to create an IED from everyday items. The article had annotations that the prosecution alleges were in Smith’s handwriting. He had also searched for a copy of the Isis magazine Dabiq and had saved photos of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian-born jihadi who is believed to have masterminded the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Smith denies the charge but has admitted the lesser offence of perpetrating a bomb hoax.
The case continues.
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