'London bomb plot was just a hoax'

One of the defendants in the London "bomb plot" trial, Hussein Osman, was arrested in Rome and interviewed at length by police.

He is said to have told officers after his arrest he and his co-accused had been making a political point and the devices they carried were never meant to explode.

Nigel Sweeney QC, prosecuting, told Woolwich Crown Court, Mr Osman had admitted to police that his real name was Hamdi Isaac and he was born in Ethiopia in 1978.

Mr Osman was said to have told police he had moved to Italy in the early 1990s and to the UK in the late 1990s where he adopted the identity Hussein Osman.

He also said he had pretended he was Somali because he thought it would make it easier to claim asylum.

He said he met Muktar Ibrahim, Yassin Omar and Ramzi Mohammed at a mosque and had known them for two years, the court was told.

They played football together and went on camping expeditions to Scotland and Kent and had been to Speaker's Corner in London's Hyde Park to talk about religion, Mr Osman is said to have told police.

Explosives 'not real'

Mr Sweeney said Mr Osman told police they first decided to carry out a "demonstration" about a week after the 7 July attacks on London.