Missing terror suspect identified

A UK terror suspect under a control order who absconded can be named as Zeeshan Siddiqui, court has ruled.

The BBC won a battle to name the former London Underground worker of Hounslow, west London, who trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan.

The 26-year-old was subject to a UK control order in 2006, meaning he could only be identified as AD.

He was one of the first men to abscond from an order, jumping from a window at a mental health unit in September 2006.

Mr Siddiqui was named in court evidence as a member of a British network of men including bomb plotters.

Other members of this network were Mohammad Sidique Khan, the London suicide bomber and Omar Khyam, the recently jailed ringleader of a plot to build a massive homemade fertiliser bomb.

Mr Siddiqui associated with these men in Pakistan and attended the same paramilitary training camp as other British extremists.

According to evidence heard at the Old Bailey during the fertiliser bomb plot trial, the Hounslow man was proposed as a potential suicide bomber.

Papers relating to Mr Siddiqui released to the BBC as part of the court case, including his diary, indicate he aspired to so-called "jihadi" martyrdom, although they do not detail any clear plan.

Evidence during the trial suggested the suicide bomb idea was dropped because he himself did not think it would work.

However, the papers also reveal he, along with other British men, met Abd Al Hadi al-Iraqi, a senior al-Qaeda figure now being held by the US military in Guantanamo Bay.

Pakistan arrest

Mr Siddiqui was arrested in Pakistan in May 2005 and questioned for three months, during which time he alleged he was tortured.

Later deported to the UK, he worked in customer services for a firm with links to the Euro-Disney resort in Paris. He sought to alter his control order's ban on travel, saying it prevented him attending training at the theme park.

Soon after, he was hospitalised suffering hallucinations and flashbacks, saying he had been tortured in Pakistan.

The papers also show Mr Siddiqui rejected allegations in intelligence reports that he was involved in extremism and that he was the victim of "untested allegations".

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In his witness statement he said he had travelled widely in Pakistan over two years as part of a personal spiritual mission to better understand Islam.

He said he ended up carrying out humanitarian work in areas of Pakistan close to the Afghan border where people were fleeing fighting.

Some 30 pages of his statement have been blacked out by officials on national security grounds. These pages appear to relate to his time in Pakistani detention and a meeting with British officials after the 7 July suicide bombings.

Jihadi diary: Inside the mind