By Mark Trevelyan LONDON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - A suspected al Qaeda operative watched impassively in a British court on Monday as prosecutors played shaky hand-held video of the New York Stock Exchange and other U.S. financial targets he has admitted planning to bomb. Briton Dhiren Barot, 34, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to murder in connection with planned attacks in the United States and Britain -- the latter including the use of a "dirty bomb" laced with radiological material. At Monday's sentencing hearing he jotted on a large notepad as prosecutor Edmund Lawson played video footage he said was shot in April 2001 on a reconnaissance mission by Barot for the attacks in the United States. Lawson said the bombings were planned in 2000 and 2001 and apparently shelved after the al Qaeda attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people died. But he said the plans were later revived and were being worked on in 2004 in the run-up to the suspects' arrest. "Barot, evidently a member or close associate of the al Qaeda terrorist organisation, led the conspiracy to cause lethal explosions both here and in the United States of America," Lawson told the court. "The plot was to carry out massive explosions here and in the United States." The one hour and 20 minutes of video were found at the end of a tape of the Hollywood film "Die Hard with a Vengeance", after Barot and seven co-defendants were arrested in August 2004. Barot's seven co-defendants are due to go on trial next April and, under strict British media law, reporters are banned from reporting details that could prejudice their case. MULTIPLE IDENTITIES Also found were encrypted files containing the plans for the U.S. attacks, which police cracked with the help of a code word discovered during investigations in Pakistan. Lawson said Barot had assumed multiple identities, including the use of a false bank account and passport, "to assist in covering his tracks" as the conspiracy unfolded. He said a first "terrorist visit" to Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir region in 1995 was documented by Barot in notebooks describing "intensive training in various aspects of terrorism, such as use of weapons and preparation of poisons and explosives". Later training included a two-week spell in 1999 in the Philippines. Barot then visited the United States between Aug. 17 and Nov 14, 2000 and from March 11 to April 8, 2001. It was during the latter trip that the video of the NYSE and other buildings was shot. Lawson said prosecutors believed Barot visited Pakistan in April 2004 to show al Qaeda backers his plans to blow up several gas-filled limousines in underground car parks in Britain. Barot has admitted the so-called "Gas Limos Project". Barot and the other suspects, who deny involvement, went to extreme lengths in the weeks before their arrest to avoid surveillance, Lawson said. They took circuitous routes, met frequently in parks, avoided phoning each other and often communicated by emails sent from Internet cafes. The judge in the case is expected to deliver his sentence on Tuesday.
