Teenager planted homemade bomb on Underground after watching YouTube explosions videos, courts hears

Very odd. He says Islam is the true faith, but is not described as a Muslim. From the Telegraph

A weapons-obsessed teenager wanted to cause carnage in the capital when he planted a homemade bomb on the Tube, a court has heard. Damon Smith was 19 when he allegedly packed a rucksack with explosives and deadly ball-bearing shrapnel and left it in on a train timed to go off within minutes. Had the device worked, it would have exploded just as people were being ordered off the Jubilee Line platform at North Greenwich, jurors were told.

The court heard Smith had a keen interest in Islam, guns, explosives and gambling, and collected pictures of extremists, including the alleged mastermind of the 2015 Paris terror attacks.

After he was arrested, the autistic student admitted making the device but claimed he only meant it to spew harmless smoke as a prank.

Before the Tube incident, Smith printed off an al Qaida article entitled “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom” and made notes in green ink before shredding the sheets of paper, jurors were told. He also allegedly searched the internet for an Islamic State magazine featuring an article about the bomb said to have brought down a Russian airliner in October 2015. A shopping list for “pressure cooker bomb materials” was also allegedly found on an iPad ending in a note to “keep this a secret between me and Allah #InspireTheBelievers”.

On his faith, Smith allegedly told police he was brought up Christian, but Islam was “more true”, although he denied being an extremist.

Pictures were also recovered of Smith with guns, including one on a laptop labelled “2016 an Islamic State fighter”. He also posed next to an image of the Brussels-born Islamic terrorist alleged to have masterminded the attacks in Paris in November 2015, the court heard.

The trial continues.