By Lucy Caulkett--
A teenage Iraqi asylum teenager accused over the Parsons Green Tube bombing has admitted being motivated by the idea of being a fugitive.
18 year old Ahmed Hassan told the Old Bailey that the main reason he decided to make the explosive device was because he was bored and spent his summer watching action movies and documentaries on fugitives. However, College lecturer Kayte Cable has said Ahmed Hassan told her it was “his duty to hate Britain” because of what happened to his family.
Mr Hassan told the court the “idea of being chased by police and in Europe by Interpol… was very attractive”.
The weird teenager said he did not like having time off after the school year finished, and had been unable to sleep due to bad dreams. In an astonishing evidence as his defence case was opened during the second week of his trial, Hassan said: “The school holidays were basically my enemy. I didn’t like it because there was nothing to do. I would get very bored.”
He claimed to have been restless and would consume as many as six energy drinks a day. Hassan thinking about making the device about four weeks before he brought it on to the tube on September 15 last year.
Hassan allegedly packed a bucket with 400g (14oz) of TATP explosives and shrapnel and left it on the District Line train on 15 September 2017.
Ms Cable, who was his lecturer and mentor at Brooklands College in Weybridge, Surrey, told the Old Bailey in a previous hearing that when Hassan started there in April 2016 he was in “the worst state” she had seen a student.
She added that he seemed “incredibly conflicted, frightened, confused”
Ms Cable recalled an occasion in August 2016 when she saw a What’s App message on his phone which said: “IS has accepted your donation. On the same occasion, he allegedly told her: “It’s my duty to hate Britain.”
When asked why he made it, he said: “I think the main reason, I wasn’t thinking as a normal person would do. I was very bored, very stressed, very confused and I watched lots of movies, action movies during that time.”
He added: “It became kind of a fantasy in my head. I was thinking about it. Yes, that was it”.
“I was watching documentaries as well, about fugitives and just the idea of being a fugitive got into my head. And I thought about it and that was it.”
Tim Moloney QC, representing Hassan, asked: “Was that an attractive idea?” “Very much so,” he responded.
Hassan has told jurors he had moments previously when he had thought “to give up”.Explaining this, he told them he meant “commit suicide” and said he had hurt himself in the past.
SEARCH
Hassan said he searched for explosives and came across TATP which was described as “homemade” and “very easy”.
He looked up the chemicals to make it and watched YouTube videos demonstrating small amounts of it, some in front of small children, he said.
Hassan denies denies attempted murder and using the chemical to endanger life. The case continues.