Man jailed for planning UK terror campaign 'stockpiled huge amounts of explosive'

A man who stockpiled enormous quantities of home-made explosive in a terraced house in Birmingham was jailed for 20 years yesterday for planning a terror campaign in Britain.

A judge told Moinul Abedin, 27, that the plot had the potential to have maimed or killed large numbers of people if it had not been "nipped in the bud" by the security services.

Abedin, of Fallows Road, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, had also made detonators to prepare for the explosion, for which he intended to use the highly unstable compound HMTD, Birmingham Crown Court heard.

His co-defendant, Dr Faisal Mostafa, 38, from Stockport, Manchester, was cleared by the jury of conspiracy to cause explosions and doing an act intended to cause an explosion.

Abedin was convicted of committing an act with intent to cause an explosion but cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions between October 1 and November 18 2000.

The jury, which took eight hours to reach its verdicts after a six-week trial, was discharged from reaching verdicts on a joint charge of possession of HMTD in the light of Abedin's other conviction.

Sentencing Abedin, Mr Justice Hughes said: "This was a serious plot. It was a plan to cause explosions on a scale which was likely to put lives in danger." The judge said Abedin – who used a "terrorists' handbook" to guide him – had put together a chlorate-based mixture very common in terrorist devices.

The court heard that Abedin is of Bangladeshi origin, but was not presented with any evidence about his intended target or motivation.

Abedin used a terraced house in Sparkhill, Birmingham, and an industrial unit in the Tyseley area of the city to stockpile his materials. He told the court that he and his co- defendant were not making bombs, but intended to start a fireworks business.