Germain Lindsay begged to speak to the Duty Manager at King’s  Cross – minutes before the bombs started going off on the London Undergound that morning. ‘It’s something very important’ he added – and that was the last we ever heard from him.

Mr. Fayad Patel was employed as a customer service assistant by London Underground and was on duty at a barrier at the end of a ‘gate line’ near the main ticket hall in King’s Cross underground station, on July 7th. Mr Patel, sometime between 08:15 and 08:45 was approached by a man he later identified as being Germain Lindsay – who, we are told, shortly afterwards murdered 26 people on a tube train travelling between King’s Cross and Russell Square.

According to Mr. Patel’s evidence to the Inquest, Mr. Lindsay told Mr Patel that he “wanted to speak to the “duty  Manager”…..then later “It’s something very important.” Patel had earlier given this testimony in 2006 under oath, and here repeated it without change. Patel gave an equally startling and unexpected reply to Lindsay: “Well, we’re quite busy at the moment because of, obviously, with the station control.”  – The what?

Mr Patel described to the Inquest how delays on the Northern Line, on National Rail and perhaps elsewhere that morning meant that “the entire Tube gate line area was congested and we’d implemented a station control to try and minimise the flow of passengers.” This involved shutting escalators off, shutting the main entrance and exit points and then periodically opening them as and when appropriate. Therefore unusual controls were being imposed on the main concourse at King’s Cross. Passengers were being delayed and, as Mr Patel says later, getting angry and “abusing” staff.

In addition, various police community support police officers were coming into the station – as Mr Patel recalled:

Q. Do you know why they were there?

A. I believe they were just passing through or they were going to a training course or something, and they heard about — and they came to help.
Q. What had they heard about?

A. They had just heard that there’s some kind of problem or some kind of power failure or — at King’s Cross.

This could well have been related to the terror-drill that morning, alluded to by Peter Power. With extra police and lockdown controls, whatever was happening was ‘obvious’ – according to Mr Patel’s reply given to Lindsay.

So, a rap is going back and forth between Lindsay and Mr Patel:

I asked him also, is there any particular reason why he needs to speak to a duty manager, is it okay if he just speaks to a supervisor, and he seemed quite adamant to speak to a duty manager (Oct 14th am, 67:5-9).

That is the last we ever hear of Germain Lindsay! There is an irony here, in that Patel is not willing to disturb the Duty Manager because of the ‘controls’ being imposed upon the station, whereas it was precisely these ‘controls’ sensed by Lindsay which led him to make this (we may imagine) rather desperate approach.      

That is the scene confronting the alleged ‘suicide bomber’ Lindsay as he arrives at King’s Cross underground station on the morning of 7/7.

The question arises….  What goes through the mind of a suicide bomber during his final hour on earth?

We already know from Inquest evidence given previously during the week that he arrived early in the car park at Luton station, dozed off while waiting for the others in his car and got given a parking ticket while asleep (Oct 11th am 70:12-17).

That’s one relaxed suicide bomber.

Now, inside King’s Cross, he sees hordes of angry people being prevented from moving around the station and he has something “very important” to say to the station Duty Manager. (Mr Patel found it very unusual that Lindsay would use this specific term for the man in charge. Normally people ask for ‘the foreman’ or ‘the supervisor’)

One wonders what it was about the unusual situation and the angry people that disturbed Mr. Lindsay.

Perhaps he was concerned for their health and safety?

The obvious point here is that the idea of a SUICIDE BOMBER wanting to approach a station manager to sort out an issue, however serious, is utterly, utterly ridiculous.

To any reasonable person this fact alone should prove that Germain Lindsay was definitely NOT a suicide bomber.

It surely does not take much imagination to realise that any man about to die on a suicide mission is bound to be locked into his own obsessed, prayerful, demented bubble. That Lindsay should have arrived at the point where he was about to do his killing and THEN had second thoughts of some kind is nuts. That he would want to share his concerns with an employee of the London Underground, simply insane.

However, there is an alternative narrative that does make much more sense.

Lindsay arrives at King’s Cross – with or without the others, that’s up to you – to play his particular (well-paid) role in a terrorism “drill”. When he gets to the main concourse he sees mayhem. There is something very unusual (to him, at least) going on. Ghastly possibilities start to unfold in his mind.

The thought occurs, “what if we are being set up to take the rap for real bombs?” He wonders what to do. He decides he will not continue with the game until he is reassured by someone who is in on the drill that there is nothing to worry about. He speaks to Mr. Patel.

Mr. Patel goes to get the Duty Manager (Lindsay knows this title from the run-throughs he and his three pals have been through with their handler). He looks again at the chaos around him. While waiting for the Duty Manager to arrive he thinks to himself, “if we are being set up why should this person be looking out for my interest? Why should I trust him, whatever he tells me?”

(Pause)

….”I’m outa here”…..

Germain Lindsay deserts the drill. Unfortunately for him and the others, the special mobile phones they have been given by their handlers (see other evidence) to communicate with each other before and during the drill can be used to track their positions at all times. Lindsay does not realise this. Nor does Khan, nor Tanweer. Lindsay uses his phone to register his alarm to the others.

They were too late for their mission anyway.

They now know there have been real explosions. Something dreadful is going on. They use the phones to meet again. They go on the run.

The information they are transmitting is being used to hunt them down…

Summarising, we have two glimpses of Germaine Lindsey that morning, both destructive of the official story: one of him quite relaxed and nodding off in his car up at Luton, the other at King’s Cross when the dreadful possibilities start to dawn upon him.

The evidence here referred to was heard on the morning of Thursday 14 October 2010 at the 7/7 Inquest (in the Old Bailey) and can be found here between sections 58 and 101.

17.10.2010

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