Court told Nadeem Muhammad was allowed on later flight despite earlier trying to smuggle device on to Ryanair plane

A man who tried to smuggle a pipe bomb on to a flight from Manchester to Italy was able to board another plane two days later, a court heard.

Nadeem Muhammad, 43, was searched as he attempted to board a flight to Bergamo on 30 January. Security officers found the device, made from batteries, tape, a marker pen and pins, in the zip lining of a small green suitcase he was carrying.

A trial at Manchester crown court on Monday was told that Muhammad, who was born in Pakistan but had an Italian passport, had intended to detonate the device on the Ryanair flight.

Airport security swabbed the confiscated device but found no trace of explosives, so concluded it was not dangerous. Muhammad was questioned by police and said the device could have been put into his bag by somebody else, possibly his wife.

He missed his flight, but was not arrested, and was able to board another flight to Italy a few days later on 5 February. “At that stage nobody had realised this was a real device and the defendant was allowed to go on his way,” said Jonathan Sandiford, for the prosecution.

On 8 February, when the device was examined again, suspicions were raised and a bomb squad called. Explosives experts found it was a “crude but potentially viable improvised explosive device” and Muhammad was arrested when he returned to the UK on 12 February.

“The prosecution say that on 30 January this year the defendant attempted to carry an assembled and viable improvised explosive device through security at Manchester airport and on to the Ryanair flight with which he was booked to fly to Bergamo, or Milan, in Italy,” Sandiford told the court.

“The only reason he would have for trying to get that explosive device on to the aeroplane was that he intended to detonate it within the confines of the Boeing 737 aircraft.”

Sandiford said the prosecution did not know if terrorism was the motive. “That may be the most likely motive, but equally it could be a desire to commit suicide or another purpose altogether,” he said.

Muhammad, of Bury in Greater Manchester, denies possession of explosives with intent to endanger life or property and an alternative charge of possession of explosives under suspicious circumstances.

The trial continues.