A “self-radicalised” suspect who brought a pressure cooker bomb to a Leeds hospital was persuaded to hand himself in to police by a member of the public who “saved many lives”, a court has heard.
Mohammed Farooq, 28, brought a device containing nearly 10kg of explosive to St James’s hospital in the early hours of 20 January planning to detonate it in a terror attack, prosecutors told Sheffield crown court.
But a patient who was having a cigarette outside saw him looking anxious and spoke kindly to him, persuading him to abandon his plans and to move the bomb as far away from the hospital as possible, Jonathan Sandiford KC, for the prosecution, told the court.
Farooq was arrested outside the Gledhow wing of the hospital, where he worked as a support assistant, after the intervention of Nathan Newby, who over the course of the early hours talked the defendant down and called the emergency services, the court heard.
Farooq had intended to trigger an evacuation of that wing of the hospital, the prosecutor told the court, by texting a colleague with a warning about the bomb. However, the colleague was at home and did not immediately pick up the message, so no fire alarm was triggered.
When that failed, he drove away, returning 40 minutes later “with a new plan of attack”, the jury was told, which was to wait in the cafe for a change of shift to detonate the bomb, to “kill as many nurses as possible”.
The court heard how Farooq had “radicalised himself” by reading al-Qaida propaganda that said it was not necessary to travel to training camps to learn how to kill westerners and that a bomb big enough to kill dozens of people could be made in a month.
Police searches of his computer found he had a terror manual containing instructions to build a bomb alongside other searches for extremist materials, and he had also researched the possibility of converting an imitation firearm to make it fire live ammunition.
When the defendant’s possessions were searched on the morning of the foiled attack, he was also found to have two knives, black tape and an imitation firearm.
During the opening of the trial, the jury was shown a TikTok video explaining how the west had killed Muslims around the world and arguing that it was not terrorism to fight back.
The prosecution said this argument appeared to have had an effect on Farooq, who a month before the attack made a note on his phone that included: “It has been too long since we have been subdued. Not any more. Maybe it’s time we stand up. Maybe it’s time we fight back.”
Sandiford said the hospital attack had actually been the “plan B”, after his initial plan of bombing RAF Menwith Hill, a joint UK-US spy base near Harrogate, was abandoned when Farooq saw the level of security on a trip there the previous night.
The hospital was “a softer and less well-protected target than a military base”, Sandiford said, chosen because of an alleged work-related grievance.
The idea of having a backup plan came from a document offering guidance to potential terrorists, the court was told.
Sandiford said: “Mr Newby realised something appeared to be amiss and began to talk to him instead of walking away.
“That simple act certainly saved many lives that particular night because, as the defendant was later to tell the police officers who arrested him, Mr Newby succeeded in ‘talking him down’.”
Farooq has admitted taking the bomb to the hospital but denied planning a terrorist attack.
The case continues.
