‘Three Musketeers’ terror gang chatted on encrypted messaging app to plot attack and gather weapons including meat cleaver and pipe bomb
All bar one of the men had convictions for terrorism
A TERROR gang called themselves The Three Musketeers on an app while plotting an attack, a court heard yesterday.
They allegedly used the encrypted messaging service while amassing weapons including a meat cleaver with “infidel” carved in the blade.
Officers are also said to have found a pipe bomb, imitation handgun, ammunition and Samurai sword.
The trial of the four defendants was meant to begin last week.
But it was suspended until yesterday due to the Westminster attack. Mr Justice Globe said he accepted jurors would be “aware of last Wednesday’s events”.
But he warned they must decide verdicts on “evidence heard in this case”.
Prosecutor Gareth Patterson QC told the Old Bailey all bar one of the men had convictions for terrorism.
MI5 spooks found a meat cleaver in a Seat Leon belonging to one of them in an undercover operation in Birmingham last August.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Officers then found the other weapons and ammunition and later uncovered the Three Musketeers group on the Telegram app.
Mohibur Rahman, 32, Naweed Ali, 29, Khobaib Hussain, 25, and Tahir Aziz, 38, were arrested.
Rahman researched the liquid bomb plot on his laptop during a meeting in Stoke, the court was told.
Mr Patterson said the attack “would be in the UK” but said prosecutors did not need to identify the target.
He added: “It is clear that attacks could be carried out imminently.”
Ali and Hussain had admitted preparing terrorist acts in 2012 by attending a terror training camp in Pakistan, the jury heard.
The same year Rahman admitted having copies of al-Qaeda’s magazine, which included instructions on making a pipe bomb.
Ali and Hussain, of Sparkhill, Birmingham, and Rahman and Aziz, from Stoke-on-Trent, deny preparing acts of terror. Trial continues.