A Kurdish asylum seeker has pleaded guilty to bomb-making and inciting two Iraqi jihadists to commit a planned terror attack in north Germany.
Fatah Mohammed Abdullah, 34, bought chemicals, over 8,000 matches, an igniter fuse, and a remote-control detonator on eBay and Amazon from April 2018.
Police who suspected he was planning to build explosives raided his Arthur’s Hill flat that December, discovering the various items as well as his own Islamist literature.
Abdullah, whose origin remains a mystery, had scribbled notes supportive of ISIS and ‘violent jihad’. A review of the browsing history on his mobile phone showed searches for pressure, and the use and manufacture of gunpowder.
Six weeks later – in January 2019 – German police raided apartments in Meldorf and Elpersbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein after a surveillance operation.
Omar Babek and Ahmed Hussein were accused of plotting to drive a vehicle packed with 10kg of TNT into a crowd and then attack passers-by with a meat cleaver.
Fatah Mohammed Abdullah bought chemicals, over 8,000 matches, an igniter fuse, and a remote-control detonator on eBay and Amazon to build bombs
Abdullah had taken ‘very real and significant steps to plan an attack’, Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Snowden of Counter-Terrorism Policing North-East said.
He pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism and to incitement to terrorism overseas. His case was heard over video link between Liverpool Crown Court, the Old Bailey, and HMP Belmarsh in southeast London.
It was adjourned for psychiatric reports and the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said a video link would probably be needed for the sentence hearing in May.
Abdullah was smuggled into Britain in the back of a lorry when he was 20. He claimed to be Iranian when he arrived, and was granted asylum.
However, the jobless refugee is suspected of being an Iraqi Kurd.
He told officials he came from a violent family home where he was physically abused by father and brothers, and was thrown out of home at the age of 13.
After his arrest, Abdullah also claimed that his mother had died seven to eight months earlier – and that his sister had burned herself to death.
Officials learned that he made at least one call to his mother from Belmarsh.
Police who suspected he was planning to build explosives raided his Arthur’s Hill flat that December, discovering the various items as well as his own Islamist literature (pictured, counter-terrorism officers pictured on Philip Place in Newcastle)
Abdullah had taken ‘very real and significant steps to plan an attack’, Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Snowden of Counter-Terrorism Policing North-East said
Prof Michael Kopelman, emeritus professor neuroscience at King’s College, told a pre-trial hearing: ‘There is no doubt that his mental state has fluctuated with time.’
In March 2008, Abdullah was charged with public disorder and spent a short spell in jail. Four months later he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after he had a dispute with his partner and attempted to jump off the Tyne Bridge.
In 2013, his mental health deteriorated again and was said to be suffering from nightmares, inadequate self-care, and at moderate risk of self-harm.
Abdullah claimed that he had been hearing heard voices since before he arrived in Britain, made worse by a beating in 2010.
He was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and personality disorder along with a long-term diagnosis of PTSD. A psychiatric nurse cared for him for two years.
In Belmarsh, he talked about voices telling him to kill himself, talked about wanting to burn himself and was refusing to eat.
Abdullah told a psychiatrist that he used to smoke, drink and take prescribed anti-depressants and that he ‘feels that he let himself down.’