26-year-old Erol İncedal, picture here on a quad bike
A TURKISH MAN accused of plotting a terror attack may have been planning to target former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie.
Erol İncedal, 26, is alleged to have been planning an atrocity that resembled the Mumbai attack in 2008, where scores of people were killed in a railway station.
But any plot was scuppered after police stopped Mr İncedal’s car for a motoring offence and planted a bugging device which picked up snippets of chatter about “bin Laden, fatwa, Syria and jihad”.
Opening the case against Mr İncedal, prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said: “You will hear that he was actively engaged with another or others who were abroad.
“The prosecution case is that such engagement was for an act, or acts of terrorism either against a limited number of individuals of significance or a more wide-ranging and indiscriminate attack such as the one in Mumbai in 2008.”
In one police recording, Mr İncedal is heard to complain about the police and speaks of pursuing a “Plan B” after being stopped.
He says: “I hate white people so much. I might have to destroy everything and do something else. These pigs, I just feel like running them over. They are pigs. Kaffar call them pigs.”
In another tape, he says: “I made a big mistake. Some very important stuff was in the car. If they find it, we’re fucked”.
The jury was told he had a Turkish residency permit with him as well as a UK passport with various entry stamps in it.