Manchester Terror plot accused denies being ‘shameless liar’

A former restaurant owner accused of plotting a terror atrocity against Jews has denied he is a “shameless liar”.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, is said to have wanted to cause “untold harm” and kill as many people as he could in a gun attack in Manchester.

The defendant is alleged to have planned to target a mass gathering of Jews in the city but unknowingly laid bare his plot to an undercover operative.

Mr Saadaoui, of Wigan, has told Preston Crown Court he was “playing along” with the operative he believed to be a supporter of the so-called Islamic State and a Syrian man, who he said had threatened him, and he intended to sabotage any plot by eventually calling police.

Mr Saadaoui said he believed the contact was set up as a “test” by the Syrian, referred to as Person A, who had been threatening him since 2017.

The accused said he left his “very successful” restaurant The Albatross in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 2023 to evade the Syrian, referred to as Person A, and begin a new life in Wigan, with his wife and their two children.

But Person A tracked him down soon after and the online threats continued, he said.

Jurors were told by prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC that police investigations had since identified Person A as Hamdi Almasalkhi and he had left the UK in 2013 for Syria and had not returned.

Mr Sandhu said: “The reality is that after the summer of 2013 he was not in the UK, was he?”

The defendant replied: “He was. I have seen him in 2017 and about three times after.”

Mr Sandhu showed jurors Mr Almasalkhi’s death certificate which stated he died in February 2021 from natural causes.

The prosecutor said: “He died almost two years before you moved from Great Yarmouth to Wigan, didn’t he?”

Mr Saadaoui said: “No, he didn’t. He is alive.”

Mr Sandhu said: “You have seen the photographs of him dead in hospital, haven’t you?”

Mr Saadaoui said: “I have seen a picture of someone dead. It’s not him. One million per cent it’s not him.”

Mr Sandhu said: “This death certificate undermines your entire defence, doesn’t it?”

The defendant replied: “I know he is not dead.”

The accused said it was an “Isis classic” for someone wanted by police to fake their own death.

Mr Sandhu said: “You know a great deal about Isis because you, Walid Saadaoui, are an Isis supporter?”

Saadaoui said: “I’m not, no.”

The prosecutor said: “Is the position this, you simply can’t go back and change your account because it would expose you are a shameless liar.”

Mr Saadaoui said: “I don’t have to change my account, it’s the truth.”

The defendant conceded the only evidence he had of his “seven-year ordeal” of threats in messages, voice notes and phone calls from Mr Almasalkhi was what he himself had told the court.

Mr Sandhu said: “The reason you moved to the North West was that you knew that your terrorism was going to go up a level.”

“Absolutely not,” said Mr Saadaoui.

In May last year he was arrested by counter-terrorism officers at a hotel car park in Bolton as he approached the open boot of a car containing two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition.

The accused and his co-defendant Amar Hussein, 52, of no fixed address, deny preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May 2024.

Mr Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 36, of Hindley, Wigan, has pleaded not guilty to failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism in the same period.

The trial continues.