LONDON, March 23: A supergrass with links to Al Qaeda gave evidence in a court on Thursday against seven men accused of planning a bombing campaign across Britain. Mohammed Babar, 31, has been brought to the Central Criminal Court to testify against the men, who are accused of having discussed bombing revellers at a large central London nightclub as well as targeting public utilities.

The Pakistan-born US citizen has pleaded guilty in the United States to being part of ‘the British plot’ and given immunity from prosecution in Britain, the court has been told.

Babar, who is said to have met the men at training camps in Pakistan, began testimony amid tight security in and around the court, and on his transfer from a secret location.

He told the prosecutor he had decided to fight against the US despite his mother escaping from the World Trade Centre in New York, when they were hit by two hijacked planes on Sept 11, 2001.

He said he become increasingly politicised after the first Gulf War in 1991 and although he wanted to fight on behalf of Muslims in Chechnya and Palestine, he had not been able to make right contacts.

The 2001 war against Afghanistan’s ruling Islamist Taliban, who supported Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, was his last chance of engaging in ‘jihad’, even though it meant fighting US forces, he said.

While across the border in Pakistan, he said he met a number of Britons, mainly from London and the Crawley area of southeast England.

“Those brothers came basically from England and were in Pakistan at the time after 9/11. Fifteen or 20 of us came to Pakistan for the jihad,” he said.

The accused are: Omar Khyam, 24, Waheed Mahmood, 34, Shuja Mahmood, 19, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, south of London; Anthony Garcia (also known as Rahman Adam), 23, of Ilford, east London; Nabeel Hussain, 20, of Horley, Surrey; and Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, north of London.—AFP>>m11/ h/18 l/20 f3<<