An IRA active service unit which planned a devastating bombing campaign in London last summer used three storage units in the capital to store Semtex and ammunition, an Old Bailey court was told yesterday.
Six weeks after police raided its Hammersmith hide-out, a storage unit in Shepherd's Bush was raided by three masked robbers seeking to recover cash they believed was stored there, the court heard. The robbers overpowered members of staff and chained one of them before using bolt-cutters to try to open the unit.
Mr David Waters, prosecuting, said: "Precisely what they were after and what they removed we cannot say." He added that they appeared to be looking for money.
Police were called to the scene and found boxes of ammunition from Yugoslavia which originated in the same factory as the ammunition recovered from a Hornsey storage unit the day before the defendants' arrest on September 23rd last year, the court was told.
Four men deny conspiracy to cause explosions and possessing explosives. They are: Mr Patrick Kelly (31), who was born in Birmingham; Mr Brian McHugh (31), of Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith; Mr James Murphy (26), of Wiltshire Close, Chelsea, and Mr Michael Phillips (22), of Trinity Close, Crawley, Sussex.
Mr Diarmuid O'Neill (27), described as being "a vital member of a Provisional IRA team", was shot dead by a police marksman during the arrests.
Mr Waters said that as recently as August this year another storage unit close to Stamford Bridge on Fulham Road, London, had been linked to the alleged terrorists. It had been opened by the landlords, who had not received payment for hire of the unit since July last year.
Police who searched the unit found more than 95 rounds of ammunition from the same Yugoslavian batch, four blocks of Semtex and 12 time and power units (TPUs), the court heard. The unit was originally rented by Mr O'Neill in 1993.
The jury was told of items recovered from the hotel in Glenthorne Street, Hammersmith, where the defendants were arrested. These included two white forensic suits, Mr Waters said. Mr Phillips, a British Airways engineer, had obtained these from his employers, counsel said.
They would have been used "to perform the final procedures with regard to the attachment of the time and power units while eliminating the chance of leaving fingerprints and any forensic trail."
A packet of temporary tattoos was also found, "another device to mislead as to description and identification" of the defendants, the jury was told.
At Mr Murphy's Chelsea home police found traces of RDX and PTA, the "constituents of Semtex", Mr Waters said.
The trial continues.