A British court on Tuesday convicted a husband and wife of planning a terror attack on the 10th anniversary of the London suicide bombings earlier this year.
Mohammed Rehman, 25, used the Twitter name “Silent Bomber” and asked users whether he should bomb a shopping centre or the London Underground train network.
Rehman used as his profile picture an image of the Islamic State group militant known as “Jihadi John”, believed killed earlier this year, and was said by prosecutors to have had a “keen interest” in IS.
He was arrested in May after posting a tweet saying: “Westfield shopping centre or London underground? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”
That was accompanied by a link to an Al-Qaeda press release about the July 2005 bombings in which four suicide bombers targeted London’s transport system. Fifty-two people were killed.
The couple were accused of planning their attack around May 28.
Rehman was convicted alongside his wife Sana Ahmed Khan at London’s Old Bailey criminal court.
Police also seized more than 10 kilogrammes of urea nitrate, which can be used to manufacture a large bomb, from their house and he filmed himself testing explosives in their back garden.
“Given his prior knowledge, experience and the ready availability of the chemicals, the manufacture of a detonator would have taken no more than a couple of days and could have been done by him much quicker if he chose to,” prosecutor Tony Badenoch told the court.
