Moment terrorist is told about ‘undercover operative’

Walid Saadaoui, 38, was jailed for life this week for the plot that unravelled when he was arrested in Last Drop Hotel car park in Bromley Cross with a car full of guns in May 2024.

Officers have now released footage of their interview with Saadaoui when he was told that one of his apparent co-conspirators had been working undercover to stop him.

The undercover operative was known only as “Farouk” during the ensuing trial last year, but Saadaoui had known him as “Abu Bilel”.

In the interview footage, Saadaoui is dressed all in grey in a police interview room an appears to react impassively when he is told the truth about the undercover operative.

He tells the officers: “Like I said to you before, whether has undercover of not, I was not expecting any guns to come over.

“I was not involved in any planning of harming people like I said before, what I said to you is true.”

During last year’s trial at Preston Crown Court the undercover operative spent days in the witness box laying bare the extent of Saadaoui’s plot.

Having met on Queens Park after communicating online, Saadaoui and “Farouk” secured a safehouse on Stratford Avenue, off Chorley Old Road.

(Left to right) Walid Saadaoui, Amar Hussein and Bilel Saadaoui (Image: GMP)

Saadaoui had hoped to store the guns there before launching a murderous attack on the Jewish community of North Manchester.

But he did not know that “Farouk” or “Abu Bilel” as he knew him had arranged to make sure the AK-47s and handguns he received at the Last Drop car park had been deactivated.

“Farouk” had also been monitoring Saadaoui, of Crankwood Road, Abram and his co-conspirator Amar Hussein, 52 of no fixed abode, throughout their plot.

Thanks in a large part to evidence from “Farouk”, Saadaoui was convicted of preparing acts of terrorism and this week jailed for life with a minimum term of 37 years.

Hussein was convicted of the same offence and jailed for life with a minimum term of 26 years.

Saadaoui’s 37-year-old brother Bilel Saadaoui, of Fairclough Street, Hindley was convicted of failing to disclose information about and act of terrorism and jailed for six years.

Closing the case, His Honour Mr Justice Mark Wall thanked all the counsel and police officers for their work on the case.

He thanked “Farouk” who’s identity can never be known but who Mr Justice Wall said “saved many lives by putting his own on the line”.