A four-member gang from west London, including a medical student, inspired by the IS plotted to kill police and soldiers in a series of drive-by shootings in the UK, a jury has heard.
It is alleged that Tarik Hassane, 22, was the gang leader who was a medical student at the University of Sciences and Technology in Khartoum in Sudan. Friends nicknamed him “the surgeon” or “Tarik Surgeon”.
Prosecutors told the Old Bailey the men had acquired a gun and ammunition, and planned to buy a moped.
They researched potential west London locations online, the court heard.
Nathan Cuffy, 26, Nyall Hamlett, 25, Suhaib Majeed, 21, and Hassane deny conspiracy to murder and preparing terrorist acts.
When his co-conspirators were arrested, Hassane planned to become a “lone wolf” attacker, the court was told.
Majeed, a physics student at Kings College London, was responsible for secret communications, while Cuffy, who worked at the Money Shop, supplied the weapon and “armed the plot”.
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC said Hassane had used his iPad to search the Google Streetview photo-mapping service for Shepherd’s Bush police station and the Parachute Regiment Territorial Army Barracks at White City.
The jury was told police found four guns and ammunition in Cuffy's bedroom and he has pleaded guilty to firearms offences. Hamlett, said to be the alleged “middle man” who passed on a weapon to Majeed, has admitted transferring the gun and ammunition.
The defendants were arrested in September 2014, except for Hassane, who was studying in Sudan. Hassane would travel back to the UK from time to time.
The trial continues.
