A HINDU convert to Islam admitted yesterday to plotting to build a radioactive “dirty bomb” and carry out a series of attacks in Britain.

Dhiren Barot’s key plan, which he called the Gas Limos Project, was to commit mass murder by packing three limousines with propane gas cylinders and explosives and detonating the giant bombs in underground car parks beneath crowded buildings.

He intended to follow those attacks with a “synchronised” dirty bomb explosion designed to contaminate hundreds of people with radiation sickness and cause nationwide panic.

Barot, 34, from Willesden, northwest London, also admitted to planning a wave of “no warning” attacks against buildings in the United States, including the headquarters of the World Bank and the New York Stock Exchange.

He wanted “to kill as many innocent people as possible”, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

His guilty plea and limited details of his case can be reported only after a joint application by The Times and the BBC to relax reporting restrictions.

The conviction of Barot, the mastermind of a major conspiracy, is regarded by police and the security services as one of their most significant successes in the fight against Islamist terrorism.

There was intensive security around the courthouse in southeast London, with armed police inside and outside the building. Everyone entering had to pass through two search points where they and their bags were checked and X-rayed.

Barot was arrested during a series of anti-terrorist raids in August 2004 and has been held in custody since then at Belmarsh high-security prison.

Wearing a brown cardigan and open-necked black shirt, Barot appeared relaxed and confident in the dock, taking his own notes of the proceedings on a laptop computer.

He stood to enter a plea to the first count on an indictment containing 23 charges.

The clerk of the court read the charge, alleging his involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder conducted between January 2000 and his arrest in August 2004, to which Barot plead guilty.

Edmund Lawson, QC, for the prosecution, informed Mr Justice Butterfield, the trial judge, of the details of the plea.

Mr Lawson said that Barot had admitted planning terrorist murders in the US and Britain.

Many of Barot’s plans for attacks in Britain were written down in notebooks. In one he outlined a “Rough Presentation for Gas Limos Project” which, he wrote, was “the main cornerstone [main target] of a series of planned attacks”.

Mr Lawson said: “The principal planned attack involved packing three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives then detonating the devices in underground car parks.”

There were to be three other attacks which, he wrote, would be “synchronized, concurrent [back-to-back]” with the limousine bombs.

The most important of these was his “Radiation (Dirty Bomb) Project”. Mr Lawson said: “That project was designed to achieve a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos.”

Evidence from experts concluded that the dirty bomb would not have caused death but, if constructed to Barot’s plan, would have spread enough radioactive material to make 500 people sick.

The intention was to create “fear, panic and social disruption”.

Mr Lawson said the Crown had accepted that the investigation had not found any evidence that Barot had obtained money to finance his plot nor acquired any bombmaking materials or vehicles.

Mr Lawson said: “The parts of the conspiracy relating to the United States are contained in plans found by the police on computers after his arrest.

“Those were plans for attacks on the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in Washington, the New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup headquarters in New York and the Prudential building in Newark.

“They were plans to carry out explosions at all those premises with no warning, plainly designed to kill as many innocent people as possible.”

The judge directed that 12 other charges against Barot — one of conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes — be left on file.

Mr Lawson said that by admitting his own guilt Barot, who will be sentenced at a later date, “makes no admission with regard to the involvement of any of his seven co-defendants in the conspiracy”.

They will stand trial next year and deny all allegations against them.

‘Items sent as earthquake aid’

Hidden among clothing were goods selected and purchased to support the activities of terrorists, a court was told

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