While Iraqi Bilal Abdulla, 29, allegedly confessed to Scottish police minutes after being arrested June 30, 2007, he testified in Woolwich Crown Court he had not plotted with anyone to kill or injure people, Sky News reported Monday.

Abdulla said he had intended to flee to Turkey after earlier attacks on London's West End were unsuccessful. But as he and a friend, Kafeel Ahmed, 28, approached the airport, Ahmed drove the sport utility vehicle into the terminal building without warning.

Asked if he had admitted to an officer he was a terrorist, Abdulla replied: "I said something along those lines, but it was more like a question."

Abdulla admitted throwing a gasoline bomb and fighting with bystanders after getting out of the burning vehicle. But he said it was Ahmed, who later died, who thrust the bomb at him and he tossed it in self-defense and to protect others nearby.

"I never had such an agreement with Kafeel," he said. "From the beginning, from Day 1, we said we will not kill or injure any innocent person. This incident, if it was to kill people or cause an explosion, we would not have done it that way."