One of the accused in the fertiliser bomb terror trial at the Old Bailey told the court today how he had run away from home at the age of 17 to join a training camp in Pakistan for foreigners who wanted to fight in Kashmir.
But he said that his training was interrupted when members of his family who worked in Pakistani military intelligence found out where he was and sent him a radio message to come down from the mountains for a reunion with his grandfather.
Omar Khyam, 24, was the first of seven defendants to testify in the trial. The prosecution allege he was a member of a British terror cell linked to Al-Qaeda, which discussed bombing nightclubs and other targets in the UK.
Mr Khyam, his brother Shujah Mahmood, 19, Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 23, all from Crawley, Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Beds, Anthony Garcia, 24, of Ilford, east London, and Nabeel Hussain, 21, of Horley, Surrey, deny conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004.
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Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain also deny a charge under the Terrorism Act of possessing 600kg (1,300lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism. Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood further deny possessing aluminium powder for terrorism.
Mr Khyam, who has a dark, closely-trimmed beard, was frequently told to speak up and answer questions more slowly as he stood in the witness box, wearing a yellow, open-necked shirt. Sometimes he put his hands in his pockets and smiled as he recalled his journey from British schoolboy to a training camp in the hills of Pakistan.
He said that he was brought up in a secular Muslim home in Crawley, West Sussex, with his mother and brothers and went to a predominantly white school, where he was captain of the cricket team and did well in his GCSEs.
Although his familiy did not pay much attention to religion, Mr Khyam said that he became more interested in religion as a teenager at college in Surrey, attending meetings locally of a radical group, Al Muhajiroun. He also started to learn about fighting in Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
It was on a visit to his family’s homeland of Pakistan in 1999, he said, that he spoke to groups active in Kashmir.
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He returned home but within a few months, at the age of 17, he ran away to Pakistan, telling his mother that he was going to France to study French and asking a friend to post a letter from there for him.
In Pakistan, he made his way to the training camp in the mountains. “They taught me everything for warfare,” he said. This had included firing weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, and reconnaissance. And he had seen others, who were especially chosen, receive explosives training.
Mr Khyam said he was at the camp from January to March 2000, when members of his family who were in Pakistani military intelligence traced him. “They were very quickly able to find out where I was,” he said.
He received a radio message to go down the mountain where he found his grandfather waiting and there was an emotional reunion. Mr Khyam added: “He was pleased but just wanted to tell me where I had gone. They were worried about me being killed.”
After returning to Crawley, he read newspaper reports which reflected the horror and concern of the teenager having run away. Mr Khyam said they had been originated by an uncle. Most of his family was happy at what he had done, except his mother.
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He then went to Belgium to help run clothes shops owned by his father who was divorced from his mother.
After returning to East Surrey College, he failed to take his final exams and was advised to take a foundation course, enrolling in 2001 at the Metropolitan University in north London.
But before his course, he went again to Pakistan for a friend’s wedding - crossing to Afghanistan to visit the Taleban before returning to England.
Mr Khyam was asked what his reaction was to the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York. He said: “I was happy. America was, and still is, the greatest enemy of Islam. They put up puppet regimes in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.”
He added: “I was happy that America had been hit because of what it represented against the Muslims, but obviously 3,000 people died so there were mixed feelings.”
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Mr Khyam said that after a few months of discussions with others and considering views of Islamic leaders, he had come to the conclusion that it had been tactically unwise.
“I think we would be working better in our own countries, trying to establish an Islamic state,” he said.