8:51am Thursday 17th July 2008
By Court Reporter
A WOULD-BE terrorist who was jailed for 33 years for his part in plans to detonate five bombs in London has failed in an appeal against his sentence.
Manfo Kwaku Asiedu was one of five failed bombers who attempted to cause terror in the capital just three weeks after the July 7 bombers killed 52 people The 35-year-old lived at the one-bedroom flat in Curtis House, Ladders Wood Way, New Southgate, where the bombs were assembled.
He was also the one who bought the hundreds of litres of hydrogen peroxide that was needed to make them.
Asiedu dismantled and dumped his hydrogen peroxide bomb which he planned to blow up in the White City area on July 21, 2005.
But four others - Muktar Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman - carried out their plans to detonate bombs, fortunately avoiding any fatalities when their devices failed to explode.
Asiedu was jailed for 33 years at Woolwich Crown Court last November after admitting conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life and property.
A jury had previously been unable to return a verdict in a previous trial on a charge of conspiracy to murder.
Last Thursday, he appealed his sentence, but had his case dismissed by Sir Igor Judge, who is currently the President of the Queen's Bench Division, but is due to become Lord Chief Justice later this year.
In a hearing involving two top QCs and an army of barristers and solicitors, likely to have cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds, Sir Igor dismissed Asiedu's case in just 90 minutes.
Asiedu, dressed in a long-sleeved light blue shirt, watched in silence via a video link from prison as Sir Igor rejected his lawyers' arguments against the 33-year jail term.
Sir Igor told the court: "The (sentencing) judge was entitled to conclude, and certainly we do, that this appellant was an important member of the conspiracy in which he was involved and that this conspiracy had developed to the point where the level of danger and the extent of risk came at the extreme end of criminality for a conspiracy of this kind."
Asiedu used his knowledge as a painter and decorator to convince those selling the chemicals that he had a legitimate purpose and continued his involvement in the conspiracy even after the carnage of July 7, the judge said.
Asiedu had argued that he was a "worker", not an "organiser" in the conspiracy, and had not known the full extent of the other men's plans until the day of the planned attacks.
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