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QUOTE
The bombs of July 7, killed eight at Aldgate and seven at Edgware Road. A further 41 died on the Piccadilly line between Russell Square and King's Cross and on the number 30 bus at Tavistock Square.
OK, the deep and buses lines are not Metronet's responsibity but, even so, lumping the deaths on the PIccadilly Line together with those on the bus drew my attention.
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Another account from Danny Biddle
QUOTE
He seems as if he could be exactly the same sharp, stocky and gregarious construction site manager who used to play as a 19-stone semi-professional football goalkeeper - until he got on the second carriage of that train at Liverpool Street station last year. Danny clearly remembers the details of that morning - he woke up with a migraine and decided to give himself a lie-in. Working on a hospital building in Wembley at the time, he would usually have been at work by around 7.30am. He almost phoned in sick, but didn’t want to miss an important meeting. For three weeks he had been taking the same route to work - changing at Baker Street to take the Jubilee line north to Wembley Park. But on July 7 he missed his stop. Instead, he planned to get off at Paddington and change for the Bakerloo line to Wembley Central. He was leaning against the perspex screen by the double doors - standing, as always, and people-watching. “I looked around. This Asian guy got on and walked down the carriage. He sat down just past me on the other side of the screen.” He was “sitting with a rucksack over his shoulders and a main bag in his lap over his chest”. Danny watched him look at his wrists several times - as if checking the time. “When he first put his hand in the bag my first thought was medication, or he’s getting something to eat, or he’s a diabetic, whatever. As the train pulled out of Edgware Road station, he put his hand back in the bag, lifted his head and looked up and then there was light like a thousand camera flashes going off. And, when I think about it, where he sat down was where there was the biggest congregation of people.”
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QUOTE (numeral @ Jul 3 2006, 10:48 PM)
Another account from Danny Biddle
QUOTE
He seems as if he could be exactly the same sharp, stocky and gregarious construction site manager who used to play as a 19-stone semi-professional football goalkeeper - until he got on the second carriage of that train at Liverpool Street station last year. Danny clearly remembers the details of that morning - he woke up with a migraine and decided to give himself a lie-in. Working on a hospital building in Wembley at the time, he would usually have been at work by around 7.30am. He almost phoned in sick, but didn’t want to miss an important meeting. For three weeks he had been taking the same route to work - changing at Baker Street to take the Jubilee line north to Wembley Park. But on July 7 he missed his stop. Instead, he planned to get off at Paddington and change for the Bakerloo line to Wembley Central. He was leaning against the perspex screen by the double doors - standing, as always, and people-watching. “I looked around. This Asian guy got on and walked down the carriage. He sat down just past me on the other side of the screen.” He was “sitting with a rucksack over his shoulders and a main bag in his lap over his chest”. Danny watched him look at his wrists several times - as if checking the time. “When he first put his hand in the bag my first thought was medication, or he’s getting something to eat, or he’s a diabetic, whatever. As the train pulled out of Edgware Road station, he put his hand back in the bag, lifted his head and looked up and then there was light like a thousand camera flashes going off. And, when I think about it, where he sat down was where there was the biggest congregation of people.”
He put his hand into the main bag in front of him, not the rucksack?
Is it not rather a leap of faith, and an incredibly racist one at that, to presuppose that the 'light like thousand camera flashes' had anything to do with an 'Asian guy' putting his hand in a bag?
Why would Biddle not say, "he put his hand back in the bag, lifted his head and looked up and then his main bag/rucksack exploded like the light of a thousand camera flashes"?
Can you see anyone carrying anything that would qualify as a 'main bag' and a rucksack in the Luton CCTV image?
On July 7 Danny, a building projects manager from Romford, Essex, had woken up with a migraine and contemplated taking the day off.
He said: 'I stayed in bed and went back to sleep. When I woke up I felt a bit better so decided to go in. By that point it was later than I'd usually set off. The bus I was on got stuck in traffic so by the time I got on the Tube I drafted a text on my phone to a workmate to say I would be late. When I finished it, I realised I had missed my stop.
'I ended up going on to the next station where I could get the Bakerloo line - and that was Edgware Road.'
On the Tube he found himself alongside a young Asian man. 'I noticed him get on and walk up and down the carriage and then sit down. It didn't seem odd, he just seemed like a young guy going to work, casually dressed with a rucksack.'
Unknown to Danny, this was Mohammad Sidique Khan - one of four young zealots in London that day intent on bringing death and mayhem to the capita.
'As we left Edgware Road I looked round. I was just 18 inches away from him with the perspex panel in between us. He glanced up, looked at me and then looked away. There was nothing in his eyes. You might have expected someone who is going to be blowing themselves up to be shouting and screaming but there was none of that.
'He looked calm - he didn't stand out as someone unusual. As I looked away he put his hand in his bag and then there was a massive white flash. I felt a pressure - it felt like the carriage expanded and then contracted very quickly. It blew me off my feet and into the tunnel wall.
'I bounced back and landed outside the train with my head two inches from the track. As I lay there, the Tube carried on rolling past I remember thinking, "I hope my body is not on the track." I realised that if it was, I would be dragged under the train or cut in half.'
The force of the bomb had blown the doors out and they had landed on his legs causing him massive injuries.
Danny was helped by another passenger, Adrian Heili, a South African who had served with the Austrian army, and Lee Hunt, a London Underground Tube driver.
Adrian put a tourniquet on his wounds and, after more than an hour underground, Danny was rushed to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.
He said: 'My last memory is of a young doctor being shown my injuries and saying, "Jesus." 'I woke up five weeks later and thought it was still Thursday. I couldn't work out how everyone had got there so quickly - my brother was there and he lives in New York.
'I was on so much medication I just couldn't work out what had happened. I remembered being in the tunnel but at that point I certainly didn't think it was a deliberate act.
When he was fully conscious, the doctors told him the extent of his injuries. Danny said: 'I honestly believed I was going to die, so when the doctors told me I'd lost my legs I just shrugged my shoulders. I already knew because I'd seen the train door sticking out of them.
'But I didn't know I had lost my eye. I couldn't talk straightaway because I had a tube in my throat, so I mimed to the consultant asking when the bandages were coming off my left eye.
'He said, "Oh, you've lost your eye,'' and that was hard because I wasn't expecting it. I lost my spleen and I had lots of infections from lying down there in the Tube. I had open wounds and it all got into my blood stream.'
It wasn't until seven weeks after the blast that Danny discovered he had been at the heart of Britain's worst terror outrage.
He said: 'I was still in intensive care when I found out what had happened. I asked my dad if it had made the news. I didn't know if it was an isolated event. When he told me, it all just fell into place but I still couldn't make sense of the fact it was a deliberate act.
'It was only days later, when I was put on a normal ward, that the enormity and the savagery of what happened hit me. It's just the sheer evil. It's murder and attempted murder. Not many times in your life do you come face to face with evil. I can't imagine it gets much worse than what he did.'
It would be another three weeks before Danny realised the identity of the calm young Asian he had stood next to that day in the Tube.
He said: 'I was on the ward and woke up at 4am. I don't sleep well because of flashbacks and nightmares. I put the TV on and BBC news were playing the video Al Jazeera had shown of Khan. I didn't have the sound on and kept thinking, "I'm sure I know him from somewhere."
'Then the words flashed up: "Edgware Road bomber". It just clicked in my mind that we'd looked at each other on the train. I just punched out at the TV. I couldn't believe it.
'I have a hatred of Khan and the other three bombers. Some people try to twist that and say I hate Muslims. That's not true. I just hate Khan for what he's done.'
He is also scathing of the Intelligence and Security Committee's report into the attacks, which was published last month.
It listed a string of intelligence leads and warning signs which MI5 pieced together too late. Danny said: 'When the report came out, the price of whitewash in London must have gone up tenfold that day. You can't have 52 people killed and cover it in 40 pages.
'Jermaine Lindsay [the Russell Square bomber] was known to have handed out leaflets at his college supporting Al Qaeda. I want to know how they can have someone under surveillance for so long and not know what he's up to.
'They say they've got audio tapes of Khan, and the CIA wouldn't let him into America in 2003. How much more do the security services need to start looking at these people?
'We need an independent body to look at what they had on them and see if they made mistakes and if they have to accept culpability. Our Government is too frightened to do that because they know they would be open to massive amounts of compensation claims.'
As the anniversary approaches, Danny is convinced July 7 won't be the last terrorist attack on this country.
He said: 'Without a doubt it will happen again. Nothing has changed. John Reid stands up in Parliament and says he can't do a public inquiry because he doesn't have the resources. Well that's fabulous news to someone who is planning something similar.'
This Daily Mail article is published a day after the FT article (see previous post)
Where to start with Biddle's varying acounts:
Firstly, he was intending to get off at Edgware Rd, after missing his stop at Baker St the FT say Paddington. If he got off at Edgware Rd he can't have been on the same train as Khan.
He tallks about both being blown off his feet, standing nect to Khan, and also describes himself & Khan as sitting down. It seems unlikely that he could have been blown out of the doors by the blast if he had been seated.
Biddle is important as it is only his eye-witness terstimony that places Khan on the Edgware Rd train. p5 of the official report states 'Khan was seen fiddling with the top of his rucksack.' Khan is also described as 'most likely near the standing area by the first set of double doors. He was also probably seated with the bomb next to him on the floor.' Standing or seated, the report is incapable of deciding, just like Biddle.
He does not have any idea that 'it was a deliberate act', what do we assume this means? He has no recollection of Khan until after the Khan video is aired with Edgware Rd Bomber under the picture. Hardly sufficient as testimony I would think.
Poor Danny Biddle has suffered appalling injuries and his treatment over compensation is appalling, but judging from the variety of quotes attributed to him, he hardly seems reliable.
This post has been edited by Bridget on Jul 5 2006, 08:26 AM
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One problem with all these witness statements is that we can't tell whether the discrepancies have been introduced by the reporters or were in the witness's statements.
The Daily Mail doesn't seem to make sense about the station. Although there is a Bakerloo station at Edgware Road it does not have a direct interchange with the other lines so it is unlikely he really intended to get off there (even though that bit is in quotation marks) and likely that he continued to Paddington as in the FT.
Another point to note is that even though Danny Biddle believes the man he identifies as Khan was a suicide bomber he makes clear in his accounts that the behaviour of the man gave no indication that the man knew he was about to detonate a bomb. He has not embellished his accounts to accord with his beliefs in that respect.
The point about the two bags is also interesting. Nothing else has ever suggested that any of the alleged bombers had more than their rucksacks, so I think it would be odd for Danny Biddle to say this unless it is what he actually saw with his own eyes.
I agree his testimony is not conclusive, but I think it may be fairly reliable.
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Edgware Road / Paddington Blast, Survivor & Eye Witness Accounts
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