Place of Birth: United Kingdom;

Gender: Male;

Nationality: British;

General Info:
Moinul Abedin turned a rented terraced house in Birmingham into a bomb-making factory with a large quantity of bomb-making material and was jailed for 20 years. He was prosecuted under the 1883 Explosives Act.

Abedin, who was 27 at the time of his trial, lived in the terraced house in Birmingham with his young family. He claimed that he and a co-defendant, who was acquitted, were setting up a fireworks business.

The police authorities allegedly followed the pair going into an unfurnished terraced house in Sparkbrook, Birmingham. Later the agents removed a bin bag left outside the house which was found to contain wiring, packaging for electrical equipment, latex gloves, kitchen scales and, most significantly, traces of the explosive HMTD.

He also rented a property nearby in which he stored chemicals and equipment which he bought from local DIY and hardware stores. He made explosives and detonators and set off small devices in a local park to test them.

When he was arrested in November 2000, detectives recovered nearly 100kg of chemicals used in the manufacture of the explosive HMTD. They arrested the men on November 17. Abedin was caught hiding in a neighbour’s house while Mostafa, 38, was stopped at Birmingham waiting to catch a train to his home in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

The jury was told that four computer discs were allegedly found in Mostafa’s jacket containing information which the prosecution claimed was a “terrorist’s handbook”.

On the hard drive of Mostafa’s computer at his home the investigators allegedly found documents with titles such as “Mujahedin explosives handbook” and “Guerrilla’s arsenal: advanced techniques for making explosives and time delay bombs”.

In the living room of the Sparkbrook house, which Abedin rented under a false name for £95 a week, investigators found a white powder in a jar which turned out to be HMTD and five detonators containing the explosive under the stairs.

Also found were protective clothing, surgical gloves and tools; as well as documents including passports, visas and immigration papers. There were also credit cards and banking papers in various names.

At a lock-up on a nearby industrial park, rented by Abedin under an assumed name, was a stash of almost 100kg of the chemical components of HMTD. Abedin was linked to the unit via a mobile phone found in a pigeon coop at his home.