Tube driver ‘planned to take part in jihad’

A London Underground Tube driver planned to travel to Afghanistan or Pakistan with the intention to take part in a “violent jihad”, a court heard.

Amir Ali, who drove trains on the Bakerloo Line for five years, purchased a plane ticket to travel to Islamabad and wrote a fare-well letter to his family telling them that “Allah and his prophet Mohammed” came first, jurors were told.

When police searched the 28-year-old’s home they found pictures of him posing with weapons including two AK47 rifles and a self-loading pistol, prosecutor Duncan Penny said.

He said: “It is no coincidence that also in his possession were various forms of extreme literature and propaganda advocating the use of violence against the non-believer – or kuffar – in the name of Islam.”

Mr Penny said that in March 2009 Mr Ali paid cash towards a flight from Heathrow to Islamabad and planned to leave his wife and four-year-old daughter and three-year-old son behind.

Mr Penny said: “When the flight was purchased, and until he decided not to travel, the defendant intended to travel to Pakistan and had the intention there, or in Afghanistan, to engage in violent jihad or to assist others to do so.

“He was to travel alone, leaving his wife and children behind him at their home in east London.

“He had written a letter to his wife in which he instructed her and his little boy what to do after he had gone.

“In the letter he told her not to be upset or depressed with him for not being there as, he claimed, he always would remember her and his children.

“He told her to tell the children that he loved them very much but that he had to go for the sake of Allah, because Allah and his prophet Mohammed come first.”

In the letter he also asked for forgiveness from his parents and his brother and sister.

Mr Ali, of Hampton Road, Ilford, Essex, made two other trips to Pakistan – where his grandmother and grandfather live – in 2007 and 2008.

He denies one count of preparing for acts of terrorism between April 2006 and March 2009.