London, Oct.11 : A Muslm fanatic, mockingly calling himself "Osama bin London" told a court here on Wednesday that he radicalised and trained the July 21 bombers.

Mohammed Hamid was quoted by the Daily Mail as saying that he brainwashed followers on paintballing trips and training camps in the English countryside to prepare them for fighting.

Under his instruction, the young men allegedly performed military-style training, brandishing sticks as if they were guns and practising tactics to counter an armed ambush.

One of the paintballing trips, attended by July 21 bombers Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman, took place just four days before the July 7 attacks and two weeks before the two men carried out their own attempt.

Fifty-year-old Hamid, who ran a stall on London's Oxford Street, is accused of recruiting disaffected young men by handing out extremist literature and issuing invitations to prayers at his house.

He encouraged his pupils to become terrorists and to train for a "jihad" against non-believers, the jury was told.

After the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 which killed 52 people, a tape recording of Hamid allegedly has him scoffing at the death toll, saying "52, that's not even breakfast for me".

The Woolwich Crown Court was told that Hamid's accomplice, 43-year-old Atilla Ahmet, has already pleaded guilty to soliciting to murder and will be sentenced later.

Hamid, who is married with children, was put under covert surveillance in September 2005. In April 2006, an undercover police officer visited his stall, posing as a disaffected young man, and was recruited by Hamid. His evidence of what happened at the Friday prayers and training camps will be presented to the jury. Hamid, Ahmet and four others were arrested in September 2006.

After the arrests, police raided their homes and found extremist videos and tapes featuring beheadings and suicide bombings.

He is standing trial with four other men: Mousa Brown, 41, of Walthamstow, North London, Kibley da Costa, 24, of West Norwood, South London, Kader Ahmed, 20, of Plaistow, East London, and Mohammed Al Figari, 43, of Tottenham, North London.

All the men deny all the charges brought against them in the first use of the Terrorism Act 2006.

The prosecution say there is no doubt that Hamid and the others knew only too well that the bombers had attended his training sessions. The trial continues. (ANI)