Jury sees videos of London bombing suspects
Home video of the ringleader of the July 7 bombings introducing his baby daughter to a man accused of helping him plot his attacks was shown for the first time today.
In footage shown to a court, Edgware Road bomber Mohammed Siddique Khan films the child meeting her three "uncles".
Two of the men who would go on to join him in attacks on the London transport system in 2005, Shezhad Tanweer and Hasib Hussain, smile and lark about for the camera.
The third, Waheed Ali (aged 24) who is seen holding the baby, is one of three men accused of carrying out a reconnaissance of possible targets for the bombers to attack.
Ali, from Tower Hamlets, east London, Sadeer Saleem (aged 27) and Mohammed Shakil (aged 31) both from Beeston, Leeds, deny conspiring with the four suicide bombers to cause explosions between November 17, 2004 and July 8, 2005.
But the jury, sitting at Kingston Crown Court, were today told the men were very close.
It is the prosecution case, they were told, that when Khan decided to take his planned mission of jihad from Afghanistan to the UK, they agreed to help him.
Prosecutor Neil Flewitt QC has told the court that the three men undertook a "hostile reconnaissance of potential targets" during a two-day trip to London.
As part of their trip they visited the London Eye, the London Aquarium and the Natural History Museum.
Mr Flewitt said the locations they visited, "bore a striking similarity" to those where the bombs were eventually detonated.
The defendants say their trip was an "innocent social outing", he told the jury, but it is the prosecution case that it was "part of a sinister plot to cause explosions."
They claim, he said, that their friendship with the bombers was "entirely innocent".
But he told the jury they would see material seized from the men's homes that would "provide a valuable insight into their attitudes and beliefs."
These include images of the devastation wrought by 9/11, a long tract glorying in the achievement of those responsible and T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Warriors of Allah".
The jury saw the grainy footage, believed to have been shot in the kitchen and living room of Khan's home in the days before he flew to Pakistan in November 2004 to "fight jihad".
Ali is seen on the footage kissing his biceps and then holding the young child in his arms and bouncing her up and down saying: "Where's Daddy?".
The footage then moves back to the kitchen where Khan holds his daughter and kisses her head while recording a goodbye message in a soft voice.
Once in Pakistan, however, Khan and Tanweer had a "change of plan" during the trip and they returned to the UK where Khan masterminded the July 7 attacks which killed 52 people, said Mr Flewitt.
Mr Flewitt told the jury that Waheed Ali was, "particularly close" to Khan.
His presence in the video, text message contact between the pair and his attendance of meetings with another man, Ausman, "makes it all the more likely that when called upon to do so, he would be willing to lend assistance to Mohammed Siddique Khan's revised plan to fight jihad not in Afghanistan but here in the UK".
The court earlier heard that both Ali and Shakil had previously been on trips to Pakistan with Khan.
In July 2003, Shakil took part in training camps during a "fact-finding mission" with Khan in which they used light machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK47 assault rifles.
This followed another trip to the country in 2001 by Khan and Ali.
Mr Flewitt said: "That trip to Pakistan provides further evidence of the mindset and motivation of Mohammed Shakil. If the trip made by Waheed Ali in 2001 was for a similar purpose, then, in his case too, you have a further indication of his commitment to fighting jihad."
The court, which included some family members of July 7 victims sitting in the public gallery, was shown previously unseen CCTV footage from the London transport network on the day of the attack.
The movements of the bombers, who met at Luton railway station, were tracked by cameras until they disappeared on to underground trains.
Chilling footage of the effect of the blast set off by Tanweer was also shown.
Thirty seconds after the train is seen pulling out of the station a bright flash of light is seen in the tunnel into which it has just disappeared. This is fast followed by clouds of dust which partially obscure the camera view for a few moments.
CCTV footage from the reception of the British Medical Association building in Tavistock Square where the number 30 bus was blown up by Hasib Hussain was also shown.
Two people chatting at the front desk are thrown to the floor by the impact of the blast. Their confusion is obvious as they struggle to their feet and hurry in the direction of the blast.
Pictures from a bus which was just ahead of the number 30 show panicking passengers jumping out of their seats in shock.
