THE men had chosen one of the highest fields on Baysbrown Farm, enclosed by stone walls and below the lakeland crags, as their campsite. They pitched their tents several hundred metres from the main campsite, in northwest England's Lake District. But something about their activities in May 2004 attracted the attention of a Scotland Yard surveillance team. Photographs of the camp taken by those officers show five of the six men now on trial, accused of plotting the July 2005 attacks, in which four rucksack bombs partially exploded on three Tube trains and a London bus. Muktah Said Ibrahim, 28, Yassin Omar, 26, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, Hussein Osman, 28, and Adel Yahya, 24, are charged with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions on July 21, 2005. The first pictures of the men under surveillance were released yesterday after being shown to the jury in their trial at a London court. The group were beginning to pack up their tents when officers arrived in the area on the morning of May 3, 2004. The jury has previously been told that some of the defendants later attended camps in Scotland and in Kent, southeast England, and that one of them told friends he was "getting fit for jihad".
Detective Constable Philip Marshall, who took pictures as the group apparently did exercises, said: "They appeared to be running up and down in the area where they were pictured. They had rucksacks on."
Various police photographs showed Mr Omar, the alleged Warren Street Tube bomber, wearing a white hooded top and standing in prayer. Mr Mohammed, the alleged Oval bomber, was shown in camouflage trousers, in prayer and carrying a large rucksack. Mr Yahya, who is accused of helping to plan the attacks but was abroad when they occurred, is also shown praying in a line of other men. Mr Osman, accused of the Shepherd's Bush bomb attempt, was pictured wearing a white T-shirt, carrying a rucksack, walking with a stick. Mr Ibrahim, accused of trying to detonate a bomb on the top deck of a No26 bus, was caught on film carrying a heavy rucksack.
The third day of the trial revealed the extent of contact between the authorities and Mr Ibrahim, the alleged leader of the bomb cell. Five months after the camping trip, he was arrested outside Debenhams department store in London's Oxford Street, where he and two other men had set up a stall to distribute Islamic literature. Then on the night of December 11, 2004, he and two companions were detained at Heathrow airport as they waited to board a flight to Islamabad. Mr Ibrahim's luggage contained pound stg. 2000 in cash, a camera, sleeping bag and first aid kit. Rizwan Majiv, who was with Mr Ibrahim, also had a large amount of cash, a first aid kit in a camouflaged box and extracts from a manual on treating ballistics injuries. During questioning, Mr Ibrahim claimed he was going to Pakistan to attend Mr Majiv's wedding. But he did not know the name of the bride or the circumstances of the betrothal.
The court also heard yesterday that Mr Omar married with unusual haste just four days before the attempted bombings. All six defendants deny the charges against them.