111 Chapeltown Road

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It was not until April 2008, at the trial of the three men accused of assisting the deceased July 7th suspects, that it was revealed that there had been more than one 'bomb factory'.

Another property; 111 Chapeltown Road, Leeds, was also alleged to have been used for the creation of explosive devices.

Reports suggested however that 18 Alexandra Grove was the "main" bomb factory.

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The first witness was WAJID HUSSEIN – the landlord of 111 Chapeltown Road. His evidence was delivered in the form of sworn statements, of which he gave three to the police.

But at the Inquest (para.52), the Crown Barrister Hugo Keith said;-
“In each of these statements he had failed to give a full account of his recollection of the hiring out or rental of no. 111 Chapeltown Road. So, with my lady’s permission, I will summarise those parts of the statements where he gives differing accounts and give my lady the most accurate account of the three that he provided.”

The unreliability of the statements is confirmed by Wajid Hussein, who openly declares;-
“I have been untruthful with the police in my dealings with them to date…”

About renting out 111 Chapeltown Road, he said:
“I was approached by Mohammed Sidique Khan, who asked me if I had any accommodation he could rent for a friend….I believe the date would have been Sunday 3rd April, but it is possible that it could have been the following week, 10th April, but most likely the third. The following day, Sidique contacted me and asked to view the room with a friend. We met up that evening, and he was with a man I now know to be Hasib Hussein. However, at that time, Hasib was introduced to me and called himself IMRAN MIRZA, saying he was a student at Leeds Met University.”

But later (para.59) Wajid Hussein admits;-
“Although I have referred to the two individuals by their true names, I have only become aware of their names subsequently through media coverage. I did not know Sidique by name, and I knew Hasib as ‘Imran’ at the time”.

Summary:
The property at 111 Chapeltown Road may have been acquired on the 4th April, or the 11th April. The man who took possession was named Imran Mirza. The landlord – who admitted lying to the police – later said that Imran was Hasib Hussein, because he had seen Hasib’s photos and images broadcast all over the media.

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Hasib Hussein threatened to attack his landlord Wajid Hussein, if he entered the flat, Wajid claimed.

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MR KEITH: The second statement, or rather series of
14 statements, is from a witness called Wajid Hussain.
15 My Lady, he prepared three statements because, as he
16 explains in his statements, in each of those statements
17 he had failed to give a full account of his recollection
18 of the hiring out or rental out by him of
19 Chapeltown Road.
20 So, with my Lady's permission, I will summarise
21 those parts of the statement where he gives differing
22 accounts and give my Lady the most accurate account of
23 the three that he provided.
24 Statement of MR WAJID HUSSAIN read
25 "I am Wajid Hussain."

1 The first statement is dated 5 December 2005:
2 "I make this statement in regard of a room which
3 I rented out to Mohammed Sidique Khan and Hasib Hussain,
4 though I did not know their full names at the time, the
5 full reasons for which I will explain later in this
6 statement."
7 Turning over the page:
8 "I am a businessman myself and own a number of
9 different companies. My main line of work is the
10 ownership and running of two supermarkets. I also own
11 a building located at 109-111 Chapeltown Road. The
12 building houses two other businesses that I own,
13 a sandwich bar and a restaurant. Both are family-owned.
14 "Above the two restaurants are five self-contained
15 rooms, bedsits, which are rented out to people. They
16 are often rented by staff and students. Currently
17 living in the rooms are three students and another man.
18 I only know the first names of these people.
19 "I am aware of the bombings which took place in
20 London on 7 July. The media has published photographs
21 of the people said to be responsible for these acts.
22 I am able to say that I recognise three of the people
23 that the media state are responsible as people that
24 I have seen or dealt with in the past.
25 "Mohammed Sidique Khan was an infrequent visitor to

1 the Francis Street mosque and I would sometimes see him
2 praying there. I did not know his name at the time but
3 would say hello to him.
4 "I travelled to Pakistan on Monday, 18 April, and
5 returned to the United Kingdom on Wednesday, 11 May.
6 A couple of weeks before I left the country, I was
7 approached by Mohammed Sidique Khan, who asked me if I
8 had any accommodation he could rent for a friend.
9 I remember that I was working at the Islamic Centre,
10 which is in Francis Street in Leeds, on a Sunday when he
11 approached me. I therefore believe the date would have
12 been Sunday, 3 April, but it is possible it could have
13 been the following week, 10 April, but most likely the
14 3rd.
15 "I explained that I had a room to rent and agreed to
16 show him round the property at 5.00 pm. I have no idea
17 how he came to be aware that I rented rooms, though this
18 is common knowledge at the Islamic Centre.
19 "At 5.00, I took him to the vacant room, room 2, at
20 111 Chapeltown Road. The room had been empty for about
21 two months since the previous occupant had moved out.
22 I took him to look at the room and was present when he
23 did so. He asked a number of questions about who else
24 was living in other rooms in the building. He said that
25 his friend [because, my Lady, to paraphrase, he said he

1 was carrying out the rental on behalf of a friend] would
2 not like loud music and things like that disturbing him.
3 He said that he would most likely rent the room but
4 would need to show it to his friend. Sidique took my
5 mobile telephone number and said that he would contact
6 me.
7 "The following day, Sidique contacted me and asked
8 to view the room with his friend. We met up that
9 evening and he was with a man I now know to be
10 Hasib Hussain. However, at this time, Hasib was
11 introduced to me and called himself Imran Mirza, saying
12 he was a student at Leeds Met University. They agreed
13 to rent the room immediately and Hasib paid me £360 to
14 cover the deposit and one month's rent in advance. He
15 paid in cash.
16 "Hasib also provided me with a contact telephone
17 number and I handed over the keys. I am unable to
18 remember the phone number that he provided to me now and
19 I have no record of it, though I believe I have called
20 him from my mobile phone.
21 "On my arrival back from holiday, on 11 May,
22 I became aware that Hasib had paid for a further month's
23 rent for the room. He had paid this to one of the staff
24 in the shop and this would have been either Wali or one
25 of the other staff who work there. I also became aware

1 of an electrical problem that was afflicting the five
2 bedsits at Chapeltown Road. The main fuse box switch
3 kept switching itself off, indicating an overload or
4 a fault in the system. I had an electrician look at the
5 fuse box and he told me there was an overload in the
6 system and this was the reason for the problem.
7 "I then went to speak with all of the other people
8 living in the rooms. I collected the spare keys for the
9 rooms that I held downstairs in the main shop.
10 I intended to knock on the doors, speak with the
11 occupants present and look in the rooms of those that
12 were not. My intention was to find the cause of the
13 problem and the person causing the overload.
14 "I knocked on room 2 and was not able to raise any
15 response from inside. I attempted to open the door but
16 could not get the key in because of a key in the lock
17 from the inside. This indicated someone was inside but
18 they did not answer the door. I did not hear any noises
19 from inside. I thought this was strange, but went on to
20 speak with some of the other occupants in order to get
21 them to reduce the load on the electricity.
22 "A short time after this, I spoke with Hasib on the
23 telephone about the problem with the electricity and he
24 did not seem to be bothered about it and that he did not
25 have anything that would cause a problem in his room.

1 It was during this conversation that he said something
2 very strange to me. He said that he had a 'Gin' inside
3 him and this affected behaviour. In our culture, that
4 is ghost that can get inside your body. He said if
5 I came into the room, the Gin might cause him to attack
6 me. I believe he was threatening me and attempting to
7 intimidate me into not attempting to enter the room
8 again, indicating that he had been in the room when
9 I could not get in because of the key on the other side.
10 "My reply to him was rude and went along the lines
11 off 'As long as you pay me my fucking rent on time and
12 don't upset the other residents, we won't have any
13 trouble'. He said nothing in response to this.
14 "My intention was to speak to Sidique about this and
15 tell him it was not an appropriate remark for Hasib to
16 have made. Although Hasib was the tenant, it was
17 through Sidique that I had rented Hasib the room and
18 I do not normally rent rooms to strangers, but on this
19 occasion I had. I never saw Sidique again after this.
20 "At some stage in the next month, Hasib contacted me
21 by telephone and said that he was going to move out of
22 the room and that he wanted to give notice to leave. He
23 explained that the accommodation was no longer what he
24 was looking for. This was the last conversation that
25 I ever had with him.

1 "By late May/early June, I had not seen or heard
2 anything from Hasib and he had not returned his keys.
3 I went to his room and knocked on the door, receiving no
4 reply. I attempted to open the door with the spare keys
5 and found that the key no longer fitted the lock and the
6 lock had been changed. I immediately made a phone call
7 to the number that had been provided to me and I found
8 that the phone was switched off.
9 "I decided to enter the room and I kicked open the
10 door breaking the lock. Inside, I found the room in
11 a mess but empty. I looked around and saw the floor was
12 littered with rubbish and boxes. I noticed that one of
13 the boxes was for a gas mask and one of them was for
14 a double-ring, portable electric hob, similar to the
15 ones you can buy from Argos. I also noticed that they
16 had put up a curtain pole, curtains and net curtains in
17 the room, none of which had been there when they rented
18 the room."
19 My Lady will recall DS Stuart giving evidence about
20 text messages between the men concerning the exact
21 length and requirements of the pole and the curtains
22 around about the time of the rental of Chapeltown Road:
23 "I also saw a large TV that had been placed in the
24 room. The floor was littered with rubbish and had black
25 bin liners on the floor. I assumed that they contained

1 rubbish and did not look inside them. I collected up
2 all of the rubbish, bin liners and boxes and threw them
3 in the box downstairs. Nothing now remains of anything
4 that I disposed of as these have been taken away by the
5 refuse collectors. I have never seen or spoken to
6 either Hasib or Sidique again. When I did see them,
7 they were in a red Mercedes E Class vehicle that was
8 about a G or H reg."
9 My Lady, he then goes on to describe how, after the
10 London bombings on 7 July, he received a call on his
11 phone from somebody who was asking where Hasib was and
12 he established that this was a call to do with the
13 tenant Hasib and he told the caller to go to the police
14 and tell them that Hasib was missing:
15 "I have been asked if I know anything about the Iqra
16 bookshop in Beeston. I am aware of this place and have
17 heard people talk about the shop, but only in that it is
18 a supply of Islamic material. I had no idea Sidique was
19 involved in Iqra and I have never visited it."
20 My Lady, that concludes his first statement, with
21 one exception. On the very last page, there is one
22 paragraph that states this:
23 "Although I have referred to the two individuals by
24 their true names, I have only become aware of their
25 names subsequently through media coverage. I did not

1 know Sidique by name and I knew Hasib as 'Imran' at the
2 time."
3 But in his subsequent statements, my Lady, he
4 clarifies certain aspects of that account as follows, in
5 his second statement, dated 20 July, he says:
6 "I have been untruthful with the police in my
7 dealings with them to date and shall explain the reason
8 why and how. I have been allowed the opportunity of
9 telling my version of events again. I understand that
10 I do not have to change what I have already said, but
11 I do wish to do so.
12 "Most of what I have said in my last statement is
13 correct but I deliberately altered certain facts and
14 made omissions from the version of events that I gave to
15 police because I was attempting to cover my own actions,
16 actions I knew to be wrong.
17 "They were designed to prevent the police from
18 establishing what I had done wrong. In hindsight,
19 I wish I had not done the original things wrong which
20 led me to not telling the truth and making omissions."
21 He then goes on to describe how he met Sidique Khan
22 through a mutual friend:
23 "I have already stated that I did not know
24 Mohammed Sidique Khan by name. That is the truth.
25 I did not know his name until after the bombings,

1 although I knew his name before it was released by the
2 media. I have actually met him properly on two
3 occasions I am able to remember.
4 "I did not think the first occasion was relevant at
5 the time of my original interview with the police.
6 I now realise it may be. I met him some years ago.
7 I cannot recall when or where, but I remember he was
8 with our mutual friend. They were working together and
9 doing some form of collection fund. This may have been
10 at a mosque, but I cannot recall. I remember meeting
11 Sidique, but that is all. I do not remember being told
12 his name, but over the course of time, I may have seen
13 him a number of times in different places, though this
14 would not have been more than casual glances and saying
15 'Hello'. The second proper occasion I met with him was
16 what I described in my last statement when he approached
17 me at the Islamic Centre. I am positive that the second
18 time I met him was on a Sunday in April. This is
19 because I was doing youth work at the centre and I only
20 do this on a Thursday and Sunday. I said the date was
21 either the 3rd or the 10th April, the date I have worked
22 out from my own dates of travel to Pakistan. The facts
23 I gave in the last statement about the meeting are
24 correct."
25 My Lady, if you go over the page, he was able then

1 to give further detail about their arrival at the
2 address:
3 "I said in my last statement I was handed money by
4 Hussain. This is correct. The following day I remember
5 Sidique and Hasib arrive at Chapeltown. They were with
6 a third male and arrived in a red E Class Mercedes. The
7 third male was Shehzad Tanweer. I know they unloaded
8 property from the car and took this inside but I cannot
9 remember what this was at the time. They parked at the
10 rear. I therefore must have been in the kitchen of the
11 restaurant and saw them out of the back of the
12 property."
13 He then goes on, on page 4 of the statement:
14 "In my last statement I said I was aware that
15 a further month's rent had been paid upon my return from
16 Pakistan. This is correct and it meant that I had
17 received three months' rent. In my last statement,
18 though, I described how I had broken into the room about
19 the early part of June. This is incorrect. The bombs
20 took place on Thursday, 7 July. I was aware of them
21 because I had seen them on the news. I was aware that
22 Hasib's rent was due around this period and I had not
23 seen him or the others for some time. Over the course
24 of the following weekend, I attempted to contact Hasib
25 on a number of occasions but his mobile phone, of which

1 I had the number, was turned off. I tried calling him
2 a number of times. I was aware that I could contact
3 Hasib through Sidique. Though I did not have a number
4 for Sidique, I was aware that our mutual friend knew him
5 as described above.
6 "At this time, I did not have his number but was
7 aware that my friend knew him. I asked my brother for
8 the number of the friend, which he gave me, and
9 I believe that I told him why I wanted that friend's
10 number at the time.
11 "On Monday, 11 July, I called him in order to get
12 Sidique's number. I resorted to having to describe
13 Sidique over the phone to him because I did not know his
14 name. I attempted to describe Sidique, I described him
15 because I had seen them together and I told him why he
16 wanted to trace him, because he had a friend who rented
17 a flat from me, but he could not help me."
18 Then, my Lady, turning to 12 July, on the following
19 page, he was contacted by his friend and they then
20 discussed the fact that there had been police raids in
21 Beeston and he was told that he should contact the
22 police:
23 "I decided I would see what had been going on in the
24 room before I did anything else. It was at this point
25 I kicked open the door and forced entry to the room.

1 Inside, I found the room as described in my last
2 statement, though I said on the last occasion I had
3 entered it in June 2005. It was a lie. I actually did
4 it as described on 12 July. I disposed of the items
5 into the bins at the rear of the shop. I did not want
6 to implicate myself in what had gone on.
7 "Things began to make sense in my head about why
8 they had changed the locks, the story about the Gin and
9 things like that. I was convinced that the group had
10 had something to do with the bombings, but could not see
11 anything dangerous in the room. I decided I would clear
12 out the room, therefore, and dispose of what I classed
13 as rubbish."
14 He then describes how he saw photographs of them on
15 the news and was too scared to contact the police.
16 The relevant part of the final statement, my Lady,
17 is on page 4 of that statement:
18 "In a previous statement [at the top of the page]
19 I explained that I attempted to speak to all of the
20 tenants about the problem with the electricity.
21 I described how I knocked on room 2 and was unable to
22 obtain any response. I attempted to open the door but
23 could not get the key in because of a key in the lock
24 from the inside. This is all true and I stand by it.
25 "However, I also indicated that I eventually spoke

1 with Imran (Hasib) on the telephone about the problem
2 with the electricity. This, in fact, was not entirely
3 true. I did speak to him about this issue on the phone,
4 but I also met him in person when he came down from the
5 room and spoke to me outside the shop face-to-face.
6 "He told me that he was boiling water in the room on
7 a portable stove. I asked why he was not using the
8 kitchen, and he said it was not as effective as the
9 stove he had in his room. He did not seem to be
10 bothered about it and he said he did not have anything
11 that would cause a problem in his room other than the
12 stove."
13 So, my Lady, that was the final correction that he
14 made to his original statement.
15 LADY JUSTICE HALLETT: Thank you.