British ex-PM Tony Blair may have been terrorism target, court hears

London:  A man charged with terrorism offences at a trial so sensitive that prosecutors sought to have it heard entirely in secret might have been planning an attack on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a court heard on Tuesday.

Erol Incedal, 26, was arrested in October last year with another man, Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadja, who last week admitted possessing a bomb-making document on a memory card.

Incedal denies charges of preparing for acts of terrorism contrary to the 2006 Terrorism Act and collecting information useful to terrorism.

“The acts of terrorism that they were preparing for were either against a limited number of individuals, an individual of significance or a more wide-ranging and indiscriminate attack such as the one in Mumbai in 2008,” prosecutor Richard Whittam told the jury at the Old Bailey court.

He said Incedal had been stopped for a traffic offence in September 2013.

“In the car, a black Mercedes, detectives found a piece of paper with the address with former Prime Minister Tony Blair written on it,” Whittam said. “In the context of this case as a whole you may think it has some significance,” he added.